B612 Foundation and 2004 YD5 Asteroid Capture?

aisnota writes "The B612 Foundation hopes to alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015 and seems ready to do the obvious and capture 2004 YD5. Slice it up, put the pieces into aerobrake containers like a simplified version of the Mars landers. Then just sell the pieces on EBay to fund more ambitious projects."

Comments

Perhaps lobbying would be more effective

[SIGALRM]

From the B612 Foundation:

Our conviction is that there is nothing more powerful to convince the public that this audacious challenge can be met than to actually do it

Governments around the world are not spending money on mitigating against this probability, to whatever extent they have considered the issue.

Whether taking the matter into their own hands, privately funded B612 will have an uphill battle to begin the process with such limited funding. Perhaps they would be better suited as an international scientific lobby, making the case and such apologetics as to attract attention to the issue.

Also, in case you're wondering, B612 is the asteroid home of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's protagonist in The Little Prince.

dropping the parts onto Earth doesn't work

[frovingslosh]

Slice it up, put the pieces into aerobrake containers like a simplified version of the Mars landers. Then just sell the pieces on EBay to fund more ambitious projects.

This is hardly going to work. They put the pieces into (expensive, once you make enough and thet them up there) containers, then drop them to Earth. How the heck do they expect to get them back? A container like this is not a very controlled re-entry device. Do they just expect anyone who comes across one, or anyone who's property it lands on to return it to them? What of the liability of hurling this at someone's property or home or body? It's not a problem on Mars, since Mars is free of pesky lawyers so far, but on Earth - big problem due to the lawyer infestation.

Re:MORE ambitious projects?

[jdray]

I'm curious how they plan to "slice it up." The technology for deflecting an asteroid is generally understood, as it's the same that we use to move satellites around. The "docking" or attachment mechanism still needs research, but it doesn't seen insurmountable.

On the other hand, after gracefully flying this big space rock into Earth orbit, then intend to, what, cut on it with high-powered lasers? Try getting any government to allow civilians control of a high-powered laser, meant for cutting through whatever you point it at, to be orbiting the Earth. And, even if they cleared that hurdle, what keeps them from accidentally shooting down some randomly passing communications satellite while they're cutting through an arbitrarily-sized rock?

I laud these people's desire to actually go do something like this, and I'd love to work on a project like this. But the idea of slicing it up and dumping it dirtside seems to be a little bold based on things we know now. How about bagging it, grinding it up, and processing the ore for resources (iron, nickel, oxygen, water, etc.) that can be used in space. Heck, it would be way more amazing to put a package of ground-up asteroid in a tug and deliver it to the space station for examination than it would to wrap it in airbags and deliver it to a bunch of glam junkies down here. And scientists would probably pay more per kilo of ore than consumers would, particularly if it had never come in contact with our atmosphere.

Why return it to earth?

[j1m 5n0w]

It seems that if they can capture it into earth orbit, it would be more valuable where it is. It costs a lot of money to launch heavy things into space, it may be more valuable as a source of raw materials already in orbit.

It might eventually even be useful as a counterweight for a space elevator.

-jim