"Next NASA mission. To catch asteroids." Topic

"NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 USD million for a new mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.

Suggested last year by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology, the idea has attracted favor at NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. President Obama's goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 can't be done with foreseeable civil-space spending, the thinking goes. But by moving an asteroid to cislunar space — a high lunar orbit or the second Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML2), above the Moon's far side — it is conceivable that technically the deadline could be met.

The Keck study estimated it would cost about $2.65 USD billion to bring in a 500,000-kg (1.1 million-lb.) asteroid, using solar-electric propulsion to reach it and a deployable capture bag to enfold a carbonaceous asteroid measuring 7 meters across. Positioned at EML2, the small space rock would be close enough to reach with an Orion crew vehicle launched by a heavy-lift Space Launch System, and would give a crew a real objective for scientific study.

Members of the Keck team that drafted the proposal briefed it to a National Research Council human-spaceflight technical feasibility panel on March 28, noting that the mission would not pose a threat to Earth because the asteroid would have the density of "a dried mudball," and would come in much more slowly than the slightly larger asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February…"
Full article here
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Ideas for what we can do with asteroids here?

Amicalement
Armand

Figure out the best way to mine it!

deepspaceindustries.com

mine it, hollow it out and use it as a hull for a ship, de orbit it and watch the lovely light show, use it as a teather point for a earth to orbit beanstalk, doomsday weapon. (mwhahahahahah.)

Mine it – then use it, as noted, as a space ship (see the book The Sparrow for details)

Just dont knock it into an orbit that would place it in a collision with earth!

It could accidently hit North Korea…If that NASA tech is good, I mean REALLY SHARP…He could skip that rock through the atmosphere…I can see it now! A HUGE ROCK! ZOOMIN' over Kims' palace, fryin' dem dere soldierboy pa-radesHELL! CAN HE MAKE IT!!!…..ahem, just sayin'..I'll be over there…

I re-watched Dr. Strangelove on the weekend too! :)

Let me get this straight…we have the idea:

1. Send a droid-to-the-roid
2. Move an asteroid over to cislunar
3. Build a missiong to go explore it
4. Explore it, and….

…no one thought to exploit the damn thing? What is the point of exploration if not exploitation?! Who are these nincompoops?

MINE IT. HOLLOW IT OUT. USE IT as a prefab ship to get from Earth to Mars. Heck turn it into a space-hotel for all I care. Make it into the Robotech Factory to fight the Zentraedi. C'mon! Why are people always "Ooo-ooo..science study…let's go foo-foo some rocks…ooo." Forget the books and the Nobels. I want my colony NOW!!!

Hell, it's worth it just as a potential beat-stick hanging over North Korea's head. "Hey..Kim..better start feeding your people…pal."

Clint Eastwood might live there…"GET OFF MY REGOLITH!!!"

Bring it into orbit.
Mine it.
Land it on Earth.
Turn it into a hotel. A real swanky one, charging lots of cash.
Use the profits to fund the next project and get the govm't out of it.

Coz whut else are we gonna do with 100 million dollars?

Very good ideas guys! (smile).

Amicalement
Armand