Update: Yesterday NASA confirmed that it is planning to send a robotic spacecraft to so that astronauts can visit it. “This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities, and help protect our home planet,” said the space agency’s administrator Charles Bolden.
Original article, posted 9 April 2013
NASA astronauts are supposed to visit an asteroid by the mid-2020s, but what if the technology to take them there isn’t ready in time? No problem – just drag the rock into orbit around the moon.
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In January, the in Pasadena, California, reported that NASA was mulling just such a plan in order to meet President Obama’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid. Now, US federal budget proposals for 2014, to be announced on 10 April, are .
According to Keck, NASA would use an ion-propelled rocket to lasso a resource-rich asteroid about 7 metres wide and tow it into lunar orbit. Astronauts would then visit – via NASA’s planned space launch system and Orion spacecraft – to mine the object and practise techniques for landing on, and deflecting, asteroids.
“An asteroid in the Earth-moon system would provide a safer destination to begin developing our capability for human deep space exploration,” says Chris Lewicki of a space-mining firm in Seattle.
