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Asteroid Passes Closer To Earth Than the Moon on Nov 8
First time accepted submitter TheNextCorner writes "NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on 'spacecraft Earth' to scan it during the close pass. "
WERE DOOMED
We were doomed? So we're safe now?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The issue here is the relative speed of the asteroid. It is very likely that it is moving from much further out in the Solar System, thus it will be moving a bit faster than the Earth/Moon.
None the less, this distance to the Earth will be plenty to significantly change the orbital characteristics of this asteroid as it goes around the Sun (due to the gravity of the Earth).
In terms of landing on an asteroid like this, there have been several proposals made to do just that, and there are several other candidate asteroids that will be passing just as close if not even closer over the next decade or so. Some of those missions even have been suggested to be manned missions to the asteroid, which could get quite interesting. One of the mission profiles is to head out to meet the asteroid about a month before it comes close to the Earth, and then do a "sample return" (manned or unmanned) using the Earth's atmosphere as an aerobrake. Obviously you need a much beefier heat shield than for ordinary LEO reentry, but it isn't as bad as it would seem and certainly is the realm of current aeronautical technology to accomplish. The SpaceX Dragon could easily cope with that kind of entry profile, to give an example.
The issue with this particular one is simply timing and getting something sent up before it passes. This particular asteroid is unlikely to get that kind of treatment mainly because it is a much more recent discovery (discovered in 2005 based on its designation), and it hasn't even received an asteroid number yet. This one might actually get a name... something that is missing for most new asteroid discoveries.
First, you wouldn't try to capture it as it's whizzing by the Earth with a giant delta-V, you'd strap a rocket to it (or something) and slowly change its trajectory so that it eventually became "parked" in a location convenient to the earth, perhaps in a Lagrangian point, with zero delta-V. This would obviously take some time; one of those new ion engines, working over the course of a few years, might do the trick; it wouldn't be an overnight operation.
Secondly, no, building the equipment would be cheap if you already had manufacturing facilities in space (or someplace low-gravity, like the moon), and already had designs in place and had already built such equipment before. Getting to that point is obviously expensive, but obviously you wouldn't build a whole space program to capture one asteroid and mine it, and then quit. (Well, if you're America, you might....) You'd do this with lots of asteroids, and pretty soon you've easily repaid your investment. It's like building a factory: you don't spend $3 billion to make a semiconductor fab and then just build one chip, you build many millions of them, and eventually pay back your investment.
According to TFA, the asteroid is mostly black and "aircraft carrier sized". The first thing that flashed into my mind was that it would be very interesting if radar images during the flyby revealed it was in fact a very, Very VERY old spacecraft.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.