Asteroid Mission Competition Announces Winner

Riding with Robots writes "The Planetary Society invited participants to compete for $50,000 in prizes by designing a mission to rendezvous with and 'tag' a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. The asteroid Apophis was used as the target for the mission design because it will come closer to Earth in 2029 than the orbit of geostationary satellites. The winning mission design is called Foresight, and calls for the use of off-the-shelf parts to undercut the price of other proposals. Here's a PDF of the winning proposal."

Comments

Another Asteriod Mission

[Esteanil]

I really do wonder if it's within the scope of today's technology to take one of these asteroids and guide it into earth orbit. For instance using small nuclear devices to prod it carefully to where it should be.

Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit.

Re:Interesting name...

[downix]

Apophis, also called Apep, is the egyptian worldsnake, desiring to consume the sun and destroy all life. It was fought each day by the god Set, to protect the sun god Ra, as he made his way through the underworld. But yet, despite being killed every day, it continually ressurects to threaten again the next day.