#Finetune asteroid hitting earth plus#

So, how do we capture an asteroid? Even a tiny one masses millions of tons, and we don’t yet have the technologies to manhandle them and put them wherever we want. Of course, a space habitat providing food, water, oxygen, fuel, construction supplies, gravity, radiation shielding, and skilled human workers situated above much of the Earth’s gravity well is an ideal platform from which to continue the exploration and exploitation of space.Īnd we should not forget that placing an asteroid into a stable Earth orbit prevents it from colliding with the Earth. The oxygen freed from iron compounds during smelting amounts to well over a million tons more than is needed for the habitats, valuable fuel mass for ion thrusters to move the habitats and solar power satellites into their chosen orbits and to spin them up.

#Finetune asteroid hitting earth plus#

The asteroid Apophis (likely one of those LL chondrites) contains enough materials to construct about 150 five-gigawatt solar power satellites at 25,000 tons of steel and silicon each, plus Kalpana One style habitats for 100,000 people, all shielded by the slag remaining after iron is smelted out of asteroid ore. Even a relatively resource-poor low-iron, low-metal LL chondrite contains 20% iron, significant quantities of water and other volatiles in the form of minerals such as clays, and oxygen to burn. So why capture an asteroid? The main reason is to gain convenient access to its resources. Using the asteroid 99942 Apophis, I outline a possible capture mission, its requirements, and a timeline. The focus of this presentation is on a specific technical approach which enables us to capture an asteroid using essentially current technologies the missions, tools, and complications of that approach and then some asteroid selection criteria and a few specific asteroid capture opportunities. See also Retrieval of Asteroidal Materials in Space Resources and Space Settlements, NASA SP-438, 1977. Updates will be posted here as available. Alternative mission profiles are being explored that should work with an applied delta-V of around 1 m/s, although the mission duration and cost will increase. Re-analysis using better tools and more recent data indicates that 95 cm/s of delta-V is needed instead of 10 cm/s, and that in 2030 Apophis approaches the Moon with too great a velocity for orbital capture in a single pass. NOTE: The orbital slingshot model used for the Apophis capture example below had a significant flaw. International Space Development Conference, May 2011