From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Mar 13 1998 - 05:17:25 MST
Michael Lorrey <mike@lorrey.com> writes:
> Weslake, Brad BG wrote:
>
> > Where would we get the energy to nudge the asteroid into orbit?
>
> Thats the easy part, since its alread in near earth orbit, simply put a
> small mass driver or plasma thruster and some solar panels on it. Use a
> portion of its own mass as reaction mass, with solar power for driver
> energy.
This will take a while, but would be very nice for a Toutatis-type
asteroid in an orbit close to the Earth's. The problem is the quick
ones (like new comets) that might sweep through the Earth-moon system
once in a while, we have less time to do something about them after
discovery than the Toutatis NEOs and they have a much larger velocity
vector. More heroic measures may be needed, since we need a much
larger isp.
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