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First off I have to admit I know practically nothing about this but wouldn't there be some very serious risks to doing this (Edit: If it's only 7m across I'm gu
by k-mcgrady 13y ago
First off I have to admit I know practically nothing about this but wouldn't there be some very serious risks to doing this (Edit: If it's only 7m across I'm guessing it wouldn burn up in the Earth's atmosphere so probably poses limit risk to us in the form of an impact)? If there are it raises some serious questions about how humanity decides whether or not to allow NASA or any other space agency to go ahead with such a plan.
- okasaki 13y agoThe burn would probably (deliberately) be done in such a way that the asteroid's trajectory would never intersect the earth just in case it failed. Once it's in orbit around the moon it's not going anywhere.
- danielweber 13y agoThings in lunar orbit do degrade and crash into the moon. NASA has put a lot of stuff into lunar orbit over the years and they all eventually crashed. There's essentially no atmosphere, but the Moon is not a perfect sphere and there are mascons that perturb orbits. It's a question of how high it is, too. NB: I didn't know this until I asked /r/space about it several years ago.
- BrandonMarc 13y agoI have to say, towing giant space-rocks around and getting them to follow a planned trajectory also sounds like a damn impressive weapon, if someone wants to use it that way. I'm not saying it's not worth doing; I'm just saying when humans see ___ can be done, enough of them get the idea of weaponizing ___ and we should keep that in mind. Perhaps we should simultaneously consider what defenses could be put in place ... this has the benefit of being useful planetary defense against "natural" earth-impacting rocks, too.