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fuel?
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There are no asteroids that are made of rocket fuel, though there are many that have chemicals (especially water ice) that can be made into rocket fuel.
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Why not push some of them in orbit around the Earth or the Moon so we can mine the fuel? It would be easy to launch from one of the asteroids with almost no gravity.
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This is an idea that's been tossed around and if it worked, would be great. You'd probably want to work with one of the near-Earth asteroids since it greatly lowers the amount of work you have to do to bring it into Earth orbit.
The big problem (besides the huge rockets necesary to do this sort of operation) would be the consequences of messing it up. Dropping a big asteroid on Eath because you made an 'oops' is a very real possibility.
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Don't mess up is the key, but it could also be placed in orbit around the Moon so a oops would not be that bad. Besides, it would be neat is the oops did happen on the Moon for studying purposes.
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I don’t think that there would be much chance of a collision with Earth unless someone intentionally tried to have the asteroid impact Earth. Guidance systems are pretty accurate, and the asteroid would probably be moved into orbit very slowly so there would be time to correct for an error.
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I agree with you Euler. But accidents do happen. But In this case it should be pretty much ruled out. IMO.
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This is an idea that's been tossed around and if it worked, would be great. You'd probably want to work with one of the near-Earth asteroids since it greatly lowers the amount of work you have to do to bring it into Earth orbit.
The big problem (besides the huge rockets necesary to do this sort of operation) would be the consequences of messing it up. Dropping a big asteroid on Eath because you made an 'oops' is a very real possibility.
Is it not a bit like the chicken and the egg? You need fuel to send a rocket to capture the asteroid, then fuel to return it to orbit (moon or earth). So whatever fuel you could mine from the asteroid would already have been wasted in returning it to orbit, unless you capture a really large asteroid - then you'd need more fuel to return it and again you'd stand the chance of wasting more fuel than you gain. If we did have a large asteroid in orbit around the Earth, and it was struck by some space junk of reasonable size would that not create a large amount of rock sized items hurtling around in orbit? If so this could create a no go area as far as orbiting crafts are concerned.
Perhaps if fuel can be mined from asteroids they would be better used as fill-up stations on route rather than mining them in orbit.
Graeme
There was a young lady named Bright.
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
in a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
--Arthur Buller--
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Don't mess up is the key, but it could also be placed in orbit around the Moon so a oops would not be that bad. Besides, it would be neat is the oops did happen on the Moon for studying purposes.
It would be poor science to place an asteroid in orbit around any moon or planet with the hope that an accident may send it hurtling to the surface.
We are just starting to explore Mars, can you imagine if someone had said lets put an asteroid in orbit and let it impact on the surface - and in the impact it destroyed any evidence of surface water or the blueberries before we had seen them.
We've already seen a comet impact Jupiter (Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9) in 1994, if they happen by chance I'm happy to watch them.
Graeme
There was a young lady named Bright.
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
in a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
--Arthur Buller--
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Or you could use the fuel mined on the asteroid to get the asteroid back to an Earth or Lunar orbit.Then mine the rest for other missions.
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NASA study SP-428 indicated a mass of 10,000 tons into earth orbit would launch an asteroid tug capable of retrieving a 500,000 ton asteroid within a two years.
Assuming we launch that with a shuttle derived HHLV. The STS can already put 130tons into orbit, it's just that 100 tons of it is shuttle. Chage the proportions slightly and you should be able to put 120 tons of cargo up at a time. For simplicity's sake, let's say you can get 100tons of that to a specified construction point.
That would require 100 HLLVs. Assuming the HLLV can be built and launched for the same as the shuttle, this would cost a 'modest' $60 billion. In reality, the HLLVs would be sent up as quickly as they could be built in the VAB (probably 12-24/year) and might cost half as much as the shuttle or less. This would give us a considerable amount of money for the cargo itself. Of which only 3350tons needs be precision built; the rest being reaction mass. The 'tug' would then have to cost around ten million dollars a ton, which is not completely unreasonable, since this is in the reigon of what a 747 and most satellites cost.
Dumb question: Why are we going to Mars again?
ANTIcarrot.
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an interesting site dealing with asteroid mining
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Is it not a bit like the chicken and the egg? You need fuel to send a rocket to capture the asteroid, then fuel to return it to orbit [...]
Graeme
You could land nuclear or solar powered mass drivers on the asteroid. Since the mass drivers are hurling asteroidal material, the asteroid provides it's own reaction mass.
Here is one such proposal:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/05/1 … oid.eater/
Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.
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I agree with you Euler. But accidents do happen. But In this case it should be pretty much ruled out. IMO.
It is tempting to bring asteroids close to Earth. The deeper into the gravity well you go, the more the Oberth effect can be exploited and the more delta vee is saved. Also aerobraking is a good source of delta vee.
My suggestion has been to set a ceiling on the size of imports to cislunar space. Some believe Tunguska was about 100 meters in diameter. Maybe a 50 meter diameter would be a good ceiling.
Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.
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Former Astronaut, Engineers Hope to Deflect Asteroid
Hollywood films have dramatized an event that scientists say could one day happen. An asteroid approaches the earth, threatening the planet, and a team of daring astronauts travels to space to stop it. Some scientists and engineers say the films were not realistic, but that the threat is real.
In the 1998 film Armageddon, Bruce Willis and his team landed on an asteroid and used a nuclear weapon to destroy it. Scientists say the movie was not accurate in its science, but that its central premise was authentic. An asteroid could one day strike the earth with devastating results.
Actually enjoyed that movie as well as space cowboys and a few others but that's for a different thread.
Former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, chairman of the foundation, spoke about its goal at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. "To deflect an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015. And we're not saying to write a paper about it, to think about it, to talk about it. We're saying our goal is to deflect an asteroid, that is, to move an asteroid, to change its orbit, by 2015," he says.
They feel that they could borrow the nuclear engine technology needed from the prometheus project in order to accomplish this task.
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So all they have to do is insert one in orbit around the Earth or moon.
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