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"Wet" Asteroids Could Supply Space Gas Stations
FleaPlus writes "Water ice was recently discovered on the large asteroid 24 Themis, and Space.com discusses proposals for producing fuel from asteroid ice. NASA and the President recently announced plans for robotic precursor missions to asteroids (and a human mission by 2025), as well as a funding boost for R&D to develop techniques like in-situ resource utilization. Since most of the mass of a beyond-Earth mission is fuel, refueling in orbit would be a huge mass- and cost-saver for space exploration (especially if fuel can be produced in space), but a large unknown is how to effectively extract water in an environment lacking gravity."
if landing on an asteroid is difficult at best*, and the chances of the asteroid moving in the direction of your ship's travels are slim to none
Why do you assume either of these? Asteroids are orbiting the sun. Their orbits are predictable, modulo some minor variations caused by the (very weak) gravity of nearby ones. It's much easier than, for example, landing on an aircraft carrier, where you have to worry about changes in the wind.
As to the probability of them travelling in the same direction, it's pretty much guaranteed. If you're going from the Earth to the asteroids, you use a transfer orbit, where you are starting in the Earth's orbit around the sun and then injecting enough energy to move you out to the asteroid belt. You end up on solar orbit in the asteroid belt. Any asteroid in the same orbit will, by definition, be going in the same direction and speed as you. Asteroids in nearby orbits will have a small relative speed, and the energy required to enter a transfer orbit to rendezvous with them is relatively small.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
so instead of Armageddon in wich we try to destroy asteroids, we'll send up people/robots to make the asteroids land at the right spot?
and how big must these asteroids be to make it worthwhile? tektonic plate shattering big?
or will it be fuel negative? like the corn which requires almost as much diesel to harvest as it will produce?
or will you beam the asteroid to it's place with yet undiscovered tractor beams? risking urban catastrophes?
We'd simply put you under the landing site. The large "woosh" generated above your head would instantly slow the rock to 0 m/s.