ALL SCI-FI

Bud Brewster · Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:42 pm; edited 4 times in total

Incredible Technology: How to Grab an Asteroid and Park It Near Earth

By Miriam Kramer, Staff Writer | March 31, 2014 05:27pm ET

NASA's plan to lasso an asteroid, bring it into a stable orbit near the moon and let astronauts visit it might sound ambitious, but the space agency is looking at two different ways to make it happen.

In one mission, a robotic probe would fly out to a small asteroid and bring the whole thing back for astronauts to explore. The other mission involves the robot bagging a boulder from a larger space rock and parking it near the moon.

Either one will help scientists work out some of technological hurdles that they could come up against while sending humans deeper into space than ever before. The new mission, first proposed in 2013, could also help researchers learn more about how to deflect a dangerous asteroid if it were on a path to Earth.

Getting to the asteroid, bringing it home and launching missions to the space rock from Earth, is no easy task, but it could serve a larger goal for NASA. By testing new technology, mission parameters and other science that hasn't yet been proved, officials with the space agency will learn more about how to accomplish the space agency's latest and greatest goal: launching astronauts to Mars.

"We really make a big deal out of this [asteroid] initiative, but you should all understand, this is a tiny, tiny piece of getting humans to Mars," NASA chief Charles Bolden said during a forum on the asteroid initiative Wednesday (March 26). "I don't want anybody to lose focus on that.

The ultimate goal of this agency right now when it comes to human spaceflight is to put humans on Mars. That's hard. That is really hard. We need a proving ground to develop some of the technologies and everything else."

[Read the whole article at the link below.]

(Me: I couldn't help noticing a resemblance. Just FYI, folks.)

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Eadie · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 1670

Then we could turn the asteroid into the first interstellar colony ship!

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

This reminds me of the movie Riders to the Stars, only without hazardous duty pay.
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WayneO
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Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:54 am Post subject:

This was the only good thing about Riders to the Stars!

But it's a pretty good thing, I have to admit. (Now HERE'S an asteroid I'd like to grab! Wink

)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

Hey, Bud, Eadie posts here! Cool

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...or not...

WayneO
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Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:57 am Post subject:

Don't worry too much fellas. Eadie is just past 14 and now tries to tell ME 'dirty' stories. (I haven't the heart to tell her that they were old before man left the caves!)
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 11:43 am Post subject:

A neanderthal walks into a cave and says to his wife, "Hi, honey! I'm home. What's for dinner?"

The wife opens the stone door of her oven and peeks inside. Shaking her head, she says, "Well, I was hoping this chicken would be ready in time, but it hasn't quite evolved yet."

(Sorry, guys. Best I could do on the spur of the moment. Smile

)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:26 pm Post subject:

Careful there. Some theorists speculate that the ancestor to the common chicken was T-Rex!
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Bud Brewster · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:01 am Post subject:

Yes, but which came first -- the T-rex or the egg? Shocked

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 12:29 pm Post subject:

I just CAN'T see a chicken laying a T-Rex egg. ("Oh, My aching butt!")
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Bud Brewster · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 2:37 pm Post subject:

Sir, that logic is flawless. In fact, it's impeckable, if you'll forgive my rather poultry attempt at humor.

However, I should point out that the mental image of the reverse situation — a T-Rex laying a chicken egg — is also nothing to squawk about. But it is cause for a cackle or two.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Eadie · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 1670

Gord Green · Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:39 am Post subject:

And as to the chicken or the egg....

It was ALMOST A CHICKEN!

Evolution may take it's time....but it either gets there...or it goes away.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

Eadie · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 1670

I learned that almost ALL life forms start with an egg and sperm. Therefore according to biologists the egg came first. (And it wasn't even breathing hard!)
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Art Should Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:23 pm Post subject:

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Eadie, that logic is impeckable! Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)