2 ms·

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?