Scientists Map Out How to Nudge Small Asteroids into Earth’s Orbit:
"The notion of an asteroid headed for Earth is typically seen as a bad omen. On the
flip side, some scientists and entrepreneurs increasingly see this scenario as a
potential opportunity. Deliberately redirecting asteroids to our planet’s vicinity could
enable us to study them up close, or even mine them.
Given that these objects are packed with valuable resources, building a collection of
them nearby could spark major advances in spaceflight, to say nothing of the scientific
research that might result from easy access to these extraterrestrial bodies.
A recent paper published in Acta Astronautica suggests that asteroids could be
captured in Earth’s orbit with aerobraking, a maneuver that uses atmospheric drag to
decelerate and position objects in stable trajectories around a planet. Aerobraking has
helped place interplanetary spacecraft in orbit around Mars and Venus, and to slow
down spacecraft returning to Earth.
Led by Minghu Tan, a PhD student at the University of Glasgow, the paper
immediately addresses the most obvious concern with this scenario: What if there’s
some mistake in the redirect process and an asteroid accidentally impacts Earth? It’s
bad enough that the dinosaurs were oblivious to their doomsday space rock, but it
would be especially embarrassing if we humans smack ourselves in the face with one."
See:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...o-earths-orbit