Two Nasa astronauts say they have devised a plan to stop an asteroid potentially colliding with Earth. The US spacemen Edward Lu and Stanley Love propose sending up a huge rocket to "tow" away any such objects. Their vehicle would simply hover over the asteroid and use gravity as a "towline" to move it out of danger. A 20-tonne craft could safely deflect an asteroid 200m across in about a year of such "towing", Lu and Love report in the journal Nature. Scientists believe that if an asteroid this size collided with the planet, it would cause widespread damage and loss of life. Various rescue strategies have been proposed, many of which have found their way into Hollywood movies. Lu and Love believe that it would be extremely difficult to attach a spacecraft to the surface of such a rough and rocky body to push on it directly. They argue that a spacecraft could simply use the gravitational attraction between itself and the asteroid to gently pull the hazardous object onto a safe trajectory. The probe's thrusters would be angled away from the asteroid's surface so that they did not reduce the towing force.

The idea is being featured in a new exhibition at London's Science Museum. "This is a tremendously exciting idea that isn't from a Hollywood scriptwriter or a theoretical scientist," exhibition developer Rebecca Richards said. "It's real science from an experienced astronaut who could be transforming a simple scientific principle into an experiment of global importance."

View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

anything that saves life is good idea....hope those scientist can make it work!

I also think that larger ships could be used for Comet and asteroid mining by slowing the orbits so as to be captured by say MARS. A good sized ice ball would save transport from Earth in the event not enough can be found for use on the surface. And if an asteroid can be found made of Hydrogen -3 , fuel for future space ships!

"This is a tremendously exciting idea that isn't from a Hollywood scriptwriter or a theoretical scientist,"

I think thats a biased statement and one reason why some significant scientific discoveries get delayed.

well... if they manage to do this, then it not be too long until they can manage to make a gravity-field in-side space shuttels and such. this way the astonoughts bodies won't become to badly damaged if they dont become absent of a gravity-field to keep them on the floor. (if that makes much sense, i'm really shattered so the right words are not coming to my mind right now.

They're not creating any kind of new gravity field. They're just using the natural gravity from the Space "tug" to alter the trajectory of the asteroid itself. Kind of like how the Moon's gravity subtly alters the Earth's trajectory.

oh, so the ship isn't creating its own gravity field?

aww... that spoils the baggage huh.

Well this idea does indeed look promising although I`m sure there will be numerous other ideas and concepts for intercepting asteroids heading towards Earth.