01-30-2007, 04:03 PM
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Too lazy to set a custom title
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 40,377
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bump ;)
Astronaut touts asteroid-bumping mission
Quote:
HONOLULU - NASA astronaut Edward Lu is campaigning for a new spacecraft that would divert asteroids on a path to slam into Earth.
The small space tractor, costing between $200 million and $300 million, would hover near an asteroid to exert enough gravitational pull that the space rock's orbit would change and a collision with our planet would be averted, Lu told an audience at the University of Hawaii-Manoa Monday night.
"We're only trying to get a really tiny change in the velocity of the asteroid to prevent an impact," said Lu, a former University of Hawaii solar physicist.
Lu was part of a panel including three Hawaii scientists who characterized the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth as rare but deserving of the same level of attention as major earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes.
The asteroid Apophis will pass within about 20,000 miles of Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.
"It's going to come so close to the Earth in 2029 that its orbit will change, and it might change enough so that it comes back and hits us in 2036," said Hawaii planetary scientist David Tholen, who discovered Apophis.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16788616/
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