Asteroids are rocky, airless planets that orbit the sun. Often considered in the astronomical world as more trouble than they are worth as they are constantly disrupting space observations, so who would even consider that you could catch an asteroid? NASA, that’s who!
The plan to capture the asteroid has been developed under a project named Asteroid Redirect Mission. NASA intend to send a specially designed robot spacecraft into space to travel to the targeted asteroid. Once in place, the robot would remove a large boulder and then transport it back to the orbit of the moon where it would provide easy access for future missions. Because of the almighty gravitational force that exists between the boulder and asteroid, when the boulder is pulled, the asteroid comes along with it. As well as providing the crew with a base for future space exploration, the mission would also be able to provide valuable research and testing facilities should we ever need to deter an asteroid heading for a collision with Earth.
However, as with any space mission, this is an expensive exercise, and one of the major costs involved is in the provision of water during the spaceflight, and transporting bulk water to low-level orbit is not feasible. It would be more cost efficient to extract the water from rocks of the asteroids near Earth. This water could then be used as a provision for space personnel and possibly tourists in the future, and could even be converted into fuel!
Although these exciting ventures are going ahead, not everyone is so enthusiastic just yet. Some people are concerned that if the whole point of the mission is to learn how to remove an incoming asteroid, then why place one right in the way to begin with? But, NASA had confirmed the size of the boulder they are looking to remove would burn up before it had a chance to reach Earth, so they are not concerned that this is an issue. As long as all the relevant safety issues can continue to be addressed, then this could be an excellent adventure and provide important feedback for further space missions.
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