NASA Plans To "Lasso" Asteroid and Turn It Into Space Station 200
A reader writes "NASA scientists are planning to capture a 500 ton asteroid, relocate it and turn it into a space station for astronauts to refuel on their way to Mars. From the article: 'The 1.6bn-pound plan will be considered by the White House's Office of Science and technology in the coming weeks, as it prepares to set its space exploration agenda for the next decade, the Daily Mail reported. According to a report prepared by NASA and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists, an, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that would wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot. From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. Though NASA declined to comment on the project, it is believed that technology would make it possible within 10-12 years. The technology would also open up the possibility of mining other asteroids for their metals and minerals. Some are full of iron which could be used in the making of new space stations, others are made up of water which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make fuel. It is hoped that the project will increase our understanding of asteroids, and even shed new light on the origin of life on Earth.'"
"the Daily Mail reported" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "the Daily Mail reported" (Score:5, Funny)
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"... the Daily Mail reported." All i have to say
Yeah- on the one hand, I'm pleased that Slashdot isn't directly linking to such crap. OTOH, it somewhat "launders" the fact that the story has been probably been filtered through the perspective of a Daily Mail report before we got it.
Anyway, it's of concern to Daily Mail readers- if any aliens on the asteroid reach Middle England, that's an immigration issue. Plus, if NASA accidentally divert it and it smashes into Tunbridge Wells, it could affect house prices there too!
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They must have a mad libs book for crazy stories...
*American agency* scientists are planning to *verb* a *singular noun* and use it as a *singular noun* for *insert job* on their way to *place*.+
Hmm... (Score:2)
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Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you mean? The Mayan apocalypse didn't happen. Looks like NASA did a perfect job in dispelling it.
Re: Hmm... (Score:2)
What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score:2)
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Stand right there. Don't move. Nasa will brink progress to you.
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I wonder if the 'gravitationally neutral' selected position is provably safe from glancing impact from other bodies that might cause either of them to change course to hit Earth?
On the other hand moving the asteroid may avoid that event
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or "Mostly harmless"
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Answer: Apply at Planetary Resources (Score:3)
Misfit by RAH (Score:5, Insightful)
"a space station for astronauts to refuel on their way to Mars"
I hope they hire Andy Libby to do their calculations.
Anyway having a "gas station in space' is not that good unless you just have it in Earth orbit. Having one halfway to mars is not going to work because you would have to slow down to dock with it and waste delta V
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a, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot.
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That's worse. That section is describing the capture mission. Ie, that the asteroid is between the Earth and the moon before the capture capsule reaches it. Which is utterly retarded.
The whole thing is a complete misreading of the concept, no wonder GP is confused.
Re:Misfit by RAH (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily, going from Earth to Mars means you not only have to travel up through Earth's gravity well, but the sun's as well, so there may be no delta V between the fueling station and the vehicle to Mars at that point. The other point is it's much easier to get to Mars than it is to get there and back, in space travel energy budgets always trumps distance; Frequntly just getting off a planet's surface is half or more of the trip energy wise, and there is noway to get around spending the energy to get off the Marsian surface. Since there will be humans on board, time of flight is also a factor, since we don't want the raditation exposure during the trip to fry them into crispy critters.
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Missed this comment earlier. Sorry.
This was also my first thought.
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If you could find one in or near a Mars cycler [wikipedia.org] orbit, this might make a lot of sense.
Remember, astronauts in long duration deep space flights should get a fair amount of shielding, and a big rock should be able to provide the few meters of rock
that would be best.
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I haven't looked at the design yet, but you may be right on the money on how to do it, albeit a more drawn out whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmm might better describe the process.
Basically you set up a series of strong electromagnets, probably in rings 'cause rings are cool. As an interplanetary ship comes zipping in, you capture the momentum in small bites with the magnets, transferring most of the momentum to the much bigger asteroid. (The asteroid is large enough that it is probably not enough to significa
Launch fuel from the asteroid (Score:2)
The fuel could be launched from the asteroid and dock with the moving mars craft.
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You're still not getting it. A fuel drop positioned such that one has to burn half one's fuel load to access it is a fucking useless fuel drop.
Not necessarily. Gravitationally speaking, Mars is uphill from Earth. To reach the asteriod would take less fuel than to reach Mars. So by refuelling, you can get away with a smaller rocket.
Verify your sources? Why? (Score:2)
Well, NASA hasn't said a word about this and they usually blab on and on about projects that won't even start for decades. But The Australian and India Times both reported that the Daily Fail wrote an article about it, so that's confirmation from three sources, right?
If Milhouse says it too, then it must be true.
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This definitely is a serious (very futuristic) study about capturing an asteroid, but absolutely not about "turning it into a space station"; the only objective is validating the capture AFAIK.
This said, may I add having a random rock linked to a space station, well, would bring the same benefits than, well, having same rock linked to the current space station: just absolutely nothing.
Mission to Mars... (Score:2)
Fuel costs (Score:3)
Even that's not hard, just really, really expensive when the fuel costs upwards of $100/kg just to get it into orbit. On the other hand if you can produce it cheaply in orbit from materials that have never set foot on Earth, and send a refueling pod drifting on a multi-year low-energy trajectory to a Mars parking orbit so it'll be waiting for the primary mission, it'd be a LOT cheaper.
Mining and refining in space (Score:5, Interesting)
People keep touting the idea of mining metals from asteroids and using it to build spacecraft outside of the earth's gravity well, but do we actually know how to do that?
The mining side of things seems relatively straight-forward (not easy, but you wouldn't need anything radically new), but smelting and refining significant amounts of ore in low gravity could be rather difficult. As far as I understand, a traditional iron smelting plant uses gravity to help with the purification, allowing the slag to float to the surface, before tapping the good quality iron from the bottom of the blast furnace.
It seems like purifying and working ore in space would require entirely new ways of working with the raw materials. Perhaps using some kind of high temperature centrifuge to spin and separate the material.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but it doesn't seem quite as easy as some of the more excitable science-fictiony plans for space exploration treat it. Many of these plans feature major problems to solve that get glossed over as minor technicalities.
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Well, one possible solution would be to send the asteroids to Earth, designate some uninhabited area as an impact zone, and drop the rocks there for traditional mining. We did something similar for nuclear tests for decades, after all (in fact the old nuclear test ranges might be an excellent choice, assuming the radioactivity's died down to safe levels in the meantime). I'd be willing to bet that now as then, the big flash-BANG would be quite a tourist attraction, with the bonus that the sightseers would
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Key phrase to keep in mind when thinking about your idea: Extinction-Level Event [wikipedia.org]
Dropping asteroids into Earth's gravity well intentionally is a incredibly bad idea.
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There are orders of magnitude of difference between the size of asteroid needed to contain industrially useful amounts of metal and the size needed to present a serious threat to Earth's biosphere. You can play around with the parameters [purdue.edu] to see what I mean.
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Hate to spoil a touch of nuclear scaremongering, but the old nuclear test sites have been open to tourists for decades.
http://www.atomictourist.com/nts.htm [atomictourist.com]
http://www.bikiniatoll.com/ [bikiniatoll.com]
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...because we don't have enough iron on Earth already?
Compared to what we could get from mining (by whatever means) a few good-sized nickel-iron asteroids? No, we don't. Not nearly. The amounts and concentrations (the latter is maybe more important) of industrially useful metals floating around in the asteroid belt are just mind-boggling, and gaining access to those resources would be comparable to a second industrial revolution.
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AVLIS (and the closely related MLIS) should work in a microgravity or free-fall scenario.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_vapor_laser_isotope_separation [wikipedia.org]
Once again, space technology can benefit from something created from the nuclear weapons research of those spunky monkeys from the dirtball orbiting a nondescript yellow dwarf out in the spiral arm
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Well no, not for sure - which is kinda the point of trying to do it. As far as smelting/refining is concerned - we probably don't need to do that with metallic asteroids, as far as we can tell they contain chunks of basically pure metal, just cut/melt some off and work it directly. The Earth has had billions of years of chemical activity in an oxidizing environment to diffuse metals through it's crust to create "ore" out of the pure metals, that never happened on the asteroids.
Working metals might be a bi
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You do understand that the 'metals' we use in industrial processes are not pure elemental metal? They are virtually all complex alloys - so melting and recombining them will undoubtedly be necessary. There have been a number of Shuttle and ISS experiments about bits and pieces of metallurgy technology in zero G but we are light years away from being able to do anything but screw in a bolt and attach some wires.
Before we can get all Kim Stanley Robinson we need to actually build something really complicate
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Most basic iron is pretty pure - i.e. it's full of contaminants but nothing intentional or severe enough to cause a dramatic shift in properties, and it's more than sufficient for structural components that will never see more than a fraction of a G acceleration. Most of the fancy alloys exist to get additional properties - more flexibility, greater hardness, more corrosion resistance, higher strength, etc. That's nice and all, but as you point out it requires a lot of infrastructure to create. On the oth
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It's quite simple really.
You slice off a chunk the size of a suv, attach a metal cylinder to the back of it and drop it into the atmosphere. The rock vaporizes from the reentry heat and the trailing cylinder captures and distills the vapors. The cylinder acts like a refinery column and segregates the various metals according to their heat of vaporization.
The main risk is pirates snagging your cylinder after the refined metals have cooled but other than that it's easy peasy.
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You don't actually need to smelt any ore, about half of the metal asteroids are essentially pure iron and nickel. It's not like earth where you have to worry about complex plate tectonics and chemical reactions affecting what's available, or about conducting geographic surveys and moving massive amounts of earth to access it. Just scope out the asteroid display case for an asteroid that has what you want and begin harvesting it.
action == reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
and when they launch to another planet from the asteroid, it will be kicked out of its "neutral" orbit and enter a declining apogee which eventually causes it to crash into Earth.
boy, I hope that colonization thing works OK
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At least with an enemy you know where you stand, but a "neutral"?
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Why would they launch from the asteroid? Build ship next to space station/asteroid/etc, give it a nudge so it drifts away when done, then fire rockets once it's at a safe distance. A 50-foot asteroid hardly has any gravity well you need to escape - even on a 50-mile one you could probably reach escape velocity with a particularly violent sneeze.
The action-reaction balance is satisfied by the rocket exhaust + ship system, the only way the asteroid gets involved is if the rocket exhaust is washes across it,
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Beware of the location (Score:2)
Bad marketing. (Score:2)
"From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. "
Call it a "handy rock to drop on miscreants if they don't behave" and you'll get the double budget before you can blink.
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Nah, the last place you want to drop miscreants is on a rock from which they can drop rocks hundreds of miles onto your head.
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Can't they just match the spin of the asteroid before they bag it?
Now they're using Heinlein. (Score:2)
Misfit [wikipedia.org].
Twice the fuel? (Score:2)
Wouldn't something like this use twice the fuel needed to get to Mars? They don't accelerate the whole way, and having to stop in the middle and accelerate again, only to have to decelerate again when you reach Mars seems pointless and wasteful. I'll admit I'm not a rocket scientist or physicist, but I doubt there's a way to carry enough fuel to do a full burn all the way to Mars, even with a fuelling point half way there. At least not with fuel loaded before take off. If you're going to load up fuel af
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That's because:
0. It's half way to our moon, not to Mars.
1. It's sort of like golf. It takes much less precision, force, and skill to make a closer target first than to get a hole in one.
Think of it like this: You spend a bunch of fuel getting out of Earth's gravity well, but taper off and just gently break free, glide up to the refueling station, dock, take on the rest of the fuel you'll need, and go from there, avoiding having to carry that fuel out of the strong part of Earth's gravity well. I agre
Let's see who gets this one... (Score:2)
Why this doesn't matter, AT ALL. (Score:3)
You see, in another four years, a new president will take over. This president will decide that they want to leave a legacy through NASA, as all the proceeding presidents since Kennedy have (all wanting to share in some of that immortality), and blow up Obama's plan for this new presidents plan. Just like Obama did to Bush (remember we were going back to the moon a mere 5 years ago!) and as I'm sure Bush did to Clinton and Clinton to Bush and Bush to Reagan and Reagan to Carter and well you get the idea.
It's like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt; when the last one dies you either deface his monuments and put your name up there or you outright destroy them.
No progress to be made here!
April 1st? (Score:2)
ntr
300 kg (Score:4, Funny)
water refined into fuel (Score:2)
Nice. Just add fuel energy ... and you've got fuel! Brought to you by the emission-free hydrogen car. We'll just squeeze an extra column into the periodic table between manganese and iron. Natrium: 25.5 protons. Chemical properties: Does not pollute. Application: Leak-proof hydrogen piping. Abundance: Just rub your fingers.
It's a little closer to sanity to describe hydrolysis as fueling water into a self-actualizing propellant.
Of course, lobbing iron ingots out of a rail gun achieves the same end, bu
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I should have added:
Chemical symbol: N/A.
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We'll just squeeze an extra column into the periodic table between manganese and iron. Natrium: 25.5 protons.
Natrium, chemical symbol Na. Atomic number: 11. Also known as: sodium.
More efficient to build the rail gun into the giant rock and lob the spacecraft with a giant rail gun.
Not really. For one, you'd be forced to deliver momentum to the rocket only during the brief period where the rocket is actually in the rail gun. Giving it a substantial amount of momentum means subjecting it to very high acceleration, which tends to be bad for its contents and structure. For another, you're forced to deliver an equal amount of momentum to the rock (opposite direction), which then has to be undone to keep the thing statio
insignia? (Score:2)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45676693@N03/6959137824/ [flickr.com]
More fantasy from NASA (Score:2)
More fantasy from the guys (never girls) of NASA. These guys don't seem to realize that that they are a cold-war relic, like NATO, and their reason for existence ended with the television shots of astronauts playing golf on the moon. Which was a long time ago. Now space exploits like 'lassoing asteriods' is the provence of Hollywood.
These NASA boys are in a celestial cluster-fuck. They believe that the future in space is completely unlimited, if only the feds would simply give them enough
Re:illogical (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea is to use energy when you are close to the sun, where photovoltaics are practical. The stored energy is then used when you are distant from the sun, where photovoltaics are not practical.
Look up Lagrange points for a "neutral spot".
Hand in your nerd card at the exit.
Re:Settlement is not a noun... (Score:3)
I don't know how you got onto /. without knowing what a Lagrange Point [wikipedia.org] is, but yeah it's more-or-less gravity neutral there. (More so at L4 and L5 than the others, but in any case you need only minimal fuel for station keeping.) And that makes it a good place for a fuel depot. In fact, it's better than refueling in LEO if you're using fuel mined from asteroids, because you need less fuel (on average) to get that fuel to L5 than to LEO. And the reverse is true as well... In order to refuel along the way you
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I also forgot to mention that splitting water from up there means you don't have to ferry it up. An even bigger benefit.
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I believe the article is talking about a Lagrange Point. I don't know if calling it 'gravitationally neutral' is the most accurate way of describing it, but I suppose it is one way that the general public might understand and reasonably acceptable. The article talks about capturing the asteroid between the Earth and the Moon and stopping it, and there does exist a Lagrangian point (L1) in the Earth-Moon system between the two bodies.
Re:illogical (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what I got too, but if that's the case it seems like a bad idea to me. The L1 (and L2) points are unstable, like trying to balance on the edge of a knife - the Moon and Earth are both "down", and you've got a 50/50 chance that when it destabilizes it'll be on a collision course with Earth. Now I suppose you could put it in one of those complicated 3D orbits around the L1 point like they do with the solar observer at the Earth-Sun L1, but that still requires constant minor momentum adjustments which could add up fast for a 50 ton mass. Especially with the sun's gravity constantly upsetting the pseudo-equilibrium.
I would think the Earth-Moon L3 or L4 "points" would be far more attractive since they are gravitationally stable so you don't have to be constantly fine-tuning your momentum. Granted though, they are at a considerably higher specific orbital energy than the L1 point, high enough even that it's easier to escape the Earth's pull entirely than to match speed with them. And perhaps NASA is looking ahead and thinking having a space station at the L1 point would be an asset towards eventually building a lunar space elevator, which would be an enormous asset towards colonizing/mining/etc the moon and quite feasible with current materials, unlike an Earth elevator. There might also be some strategic thinking involved - the L1 point is uniquely valuable, and whatever nation controls it will be well positioned for many future endeavors.
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L1 might be between the two bodies but it's gravitationally unstable. The only Lagrange points suitable for stationing a refueling base are L4 and L5, since those points wouldn't require continual adjustments to maintain a stable orbit..
This is misleading. All the Earth-Moon Lagrange points are perturbed by the Sun and the planets, and all will in practice need station-keeping. And, yes, the L1 and L2 Lagrange points are unstable (as is L3), but a Lissajous orbit about them requires about the same amount of station-keeping as would L4 and L5.
Note, BTW, that there are a number of spacecraft at the Earth-Sun L1 and L2 Lagrange points, which are also unstable and also subject to planetary perturbations.
Re:illogical - lots of sunlight (Score:2)
One could be much more purely efficient with a solar sail or the like, no conversion, but they don't accelerate very quickly and have some problems tacking.
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The energy to split apart hydrogen from oxygen in water always exceeds or equals the energy received by burning the hydrogen. Welcome to physics.
Yes, but hydrogen and oxygen are more useful as rocket fuel than sunlight, electricity, or water. Plus, the rocket that's to be refueled doesn't have to haul the water, fuel, or energy to the refueling point. Welcome to engineering.
Also, they're going to tow out a bunch of fuel and supplies, let's say halfway to Mars. Then they're going to launch a 2nd spacecraft and stop there to go get it. I have an idea. How about they put all the supplies on the first spacecraft instead and don't make a pitstop then just deal with the extra weight, which sounds easier than lassoing an asteroid.
Great idea. I bet the people at NASA have never thought of your "build a bigger rocket" solution.
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Energy is energy. Put the solar energy into an engine like an ION thruster and it'll be more efficient than making hydrogen.
You can't put light in a box and store it on a rocket. You can't even put electricity in a box and store it on a rocket, you need some way -- usually chemical -- of storing the energy. Rocket fuel is pretty efficient in that regard. An ion thruster ("ion", not "ION") uses electricity, so it would only really be worthwhile if you have the solar power generation on the rocket. Except using solar power to drive a rocket is really slow, which creates its own serious engineering problems. Splitting water, you ca
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Put the solar energy into an engine like an ION thruster and it'll be more efficient than making hydrogen.
Do you know what an ION is? It's a charged particle. PARTICLE. ION thrusters work by accelerating a mass of material away from the craft, they don't run on pure sunlight. The infrastructure to mine and harvest the gases we use to propel out of the relatively weak ION thrusters is many times greater than the facilities needed to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water to create a much stronger thrust per fuel mass. You've essentially ignored compression of energy density over time and said, "Why don't
Re:illogical (Score:5, Insightful)
And you know, NASA doesn't have anyone who understands basic thermodynamics or orbital mechanics. [rolls eyes]
Other posters have already pointed out the specific problems with what you wrote, but what bugs me more about this post, and the thousands more like it, on just about any story dealing with any scientific topic, is the inherent assumption that some random dude on /. has seen an obvious logical hole that the people whose job it is to study the subject every day for years have missed, usually based on said random /.er's half-remembered high school "science class" or undergrad Physics 101 class. Now, this is certainly possible--in all fields, amateurs sometimes see things that the professionals miss--but it's really not the way to bet.
Try thinking before you post. Just give it a shot sometime. You might be surprised by the results.
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Also, there is no gravitationally neutral spot, as every planet in the solar system is constantly moving.
Lagrange Points are what they are talking about. And, yes, they are neutral, particularly L1, L2, L4 and L5. They are talking about Earth-Moon L1 or L2.
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Yes, the Trojans are at two of the Sun-Jupiter Lagrange points, where the gravity from each of those bodies is balanced, more or less allowing small objects to remain there.
Similar points exist between the Earth and the Sun and between the Earth and the Moon. Three points lie along the axis of the two bodies, and two lie in the orbit of the smaller body, 60 degrees ahead or behind.
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Storing H2 is a massive pain in the ass; it leaks out of the tank, the atoms are so small. There are other problems with it too. Better to combine it with carbon to make methane and only crack it to get the desired liquid hydrogen shortly before you plan on using it.
That having been said, I'd rather use electric propulsion using oxygen as fuel (it's much more practical) whenever possible. Carbon monoxide & oxygen is lousy but can be made from the Martian atmosphere. Aluminum & oxygen is also lousy b
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If the Moties could do it, so could we.
Woops, wrong Universe. I wonder what Kim Stanley Robinson thinks about all of this?
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"roid" is also used a shorthand for steroids. As in 'roid rage'.
But yes...shorthand for asteroid? That's just wrong.
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Come hang around EvE sometime then. We've got belts of 'roids being stripmined by robots.
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Ouch!
Re:illogical (Score:4, Funny)
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1. Use a Raspberry Pi convert the DXF file into g-code
2. Send the g-code to an Arduino to control the motors of your 3D printer
3. Use the spare cycles of the Raspberry Pi to generate bitcoins.
4. Marketing profits!
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Would it not be great irony if the effort later causes the asteroid to crash on Earth.
Self ironic irony an iRON asteroid?
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The 1.6bn-pound plan ... release a 50ft diameter ... estimated 300kg.
Can't trust an article that can't even keep its units in check.
Hmmm
The daily mail is a UK "newspaper". The 1.6 billion pound figure is currency, not units of weight.
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Well, depending on where it is stationed and where you're going and how long you can wait to get there, it can actually be incredibly fuel efficient: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_transport_network [wikipedia.org]
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Asteroid processing (Score:2)
I believe the idea is to put the "way-station" in orbit - after all energetically speaking Earth orbit is over half way to Mars. Where the asteroid factors in is that to have a way-station you need (1) a station, and (2) supplies. You could bring those up from Earth, but then you haven't really gained much beyond just basic orbital refueling (actually you've lost out since the way station mass is all "wasted"). OR... you could bring supplies from elsewhere - say towed in from the Earth's L3 or L4 asteroi
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Sorry to spoil your nerdgasm but this plan will disappear in 2016.
Welcome to the world of American politics!
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AC would still be better off buying a couple more boxes of Depends [depend.com].
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t is hoped that the project will increase our understanding of asteroids.
Nice editing, found two mistakes on a quick read.
Agreed. "T" should be capitalized and be preceded by Mr.
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I'm a bit confused about the 'gravitationally neutral' part of this.
Fair and Balanced! Fox News has you covered.