3 ms·

I don't agree with profit. How do you ship asteroids to the surface without burning up in the atmosphere?

• slater 12y ago
  Why, rockets, retro-rockets, and some parachutes! :)
  • jessriedel 12y ago
    Rockets would be hugely expensive, and would negate the value (unless the asteroid were solid gold or so). Much better would be to apply an ablative heat shield and just let the thing strike the ground (or ocean) at terminal velocity in a controlled area.
• brianobush 12y ago
  If we can go to asteroid, it makes sense to process it locally and ship back what is needed. Assuming that much of what is mined is actually kept in space.
• fit2rule 12y ago
  You turn that asteroid into solid nickel/gold/titanium airplanes with a heat-shield, and fly them back.
  • manicdee 12y ago
    Or forget the wings and heat shield, just make a space-train of cannon-ball sized objects and hard land them in an uninhabited area. The hard part will be de-orbiting them accurately, but have a large enough landing area and that problem goes away. Suggestions in science fiction include foaming the metal in space and landing it into the ocean, then hualing the "metalberg" back to a drydock where it can be cut apart and hauled off for refining. Foaming the return mass means it will have a slightly lower terminal velocity, and it will float! Now to work on a deorbiting system that provides accuracy with low cost … perhaps a solar electric linear accelerator?