posted on Jan, 27 2009 @ 05:26 PM
I also remember reading about this concept. Basically use the spacecraft and its gravitational attraction to "pull" or "tug" on an asteroid to
change its trajectory.
Problem with that, is that the spacecraft would have to be considerably large and have enough mass that would exceed the mass and size of the
A better option would be to simply land small rocket modules onto the asteroid and fire those rockets to "push" the asteroid to another trajectory.
In either scenario, this would have to be accomplished well in advance, and calculated so that when the asteroid's trajectory is changed, it does not
change it to the point where the asteroid encounters something else that changes the trajectory again, and perhaps change it right back to a collision
course with Earth once more.
It can be done, but I think the rocket module concept is more practical than building some huge spacecraft to use gravitic pull to change an
Unless soon they come up with a tractor beam like device, but even with something like that, the spacecraft would have to still be of a considerable
size and have enough thrust power to effectively "pull" on an asteroid with either gravitic pull or a tractor beam pull.