[Rockhounds] Asteroid miners could use Earth’s atmosphere to catch asteroids

[Stephen Shimatzki]

I didn't get it.. Wouldn't it be easier and more cost effective to fix
problems on our own planner than plan trillions of dollars and generations
too attempt to teraform mars?  Space platforms and mining i understand, but
it's not like mars is just waiting for the handprint in the ice meeting
core...  I doubt we'd ever be able to give it a real atmosphere but I'm
just a mountain hick.

On Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 4:35 PM Alan Silverstein <ajs at silgro.com> wrote:

> (This was a week ago, but I'm catching up:)
>
> > Asteroid miners could use Earths atmosphere to catch space rocks By
> > Joshua Rapp, Science, Aug.  29, 2018
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/asteroid-miners-could-use-earth-s-atmosphere-catch-space-rocks
>
> Interesting notion.  As the author himself observed, "what could go
> wrong?"  But then he addressed this.  Certainly it's true that Earth's
> lower atmosphere mostly protects us against small-enough rocks -- which
> are still relatively large by human standards = "too heavy to lift"
> (grin).
>
> Digressing from the article, two thoughts it triggered which I think are
> worth sharing with you all now:
>
> 1.  As someone observed long ago, any society capable of interplanetary
>     flight (never mind interstellar) necessarily wields enormous
>     destructive power too.  On purpose, or by accident, redirecting
>     (even just "nudging") a sufficiently large asteroid/comet towards a
>     planetary body can be catastrophic.  Or similarly, if you can
>     accelerate a smaller body fast enough -- I think they talked about a
>     Space Shuttle moving at 0.3 c -- same difference.
>
> 2.  My personal vision for Mars, which will never happen because it
>     would require "seventh-generation" thinking, planning, and
>     consistency, goes like this:  (a) we visit and explore the place
>     thoroughly until we're done with that phase; (b) we clear out and
>     leave the planet for perhaps hundreds of years; (c) we bombard it
>     with redirected comets until it becomes "temporarily" more
>     Earth-like (as in, for millions of years before losing its
>     atmosphere again); and then (d) we move back to stay!
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Alan Silverstein
>
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