I think the potential for disaster greatly outweighs any scientific merits.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a fairly cool idea, if they could pull it off without incident, but what are the guarantees?


EDIT: NVM, should have read the full article, they are talking about a rock only 7 metres wide, although that that makes it sound financially worse.

What pocket is so overflowing with money, that it can be raided for this project. With our economy in the ditch, this is going to help...how....

Des

Interesting idea, I hope it is worked out with safety utmost in mind. However, I don't think is being done for mere research and scientific endeavor. I think this being done to see if another way of mining minerals/materials in space can be done in way that doesn't require long and expensive missions to far off asteroids. Instead, simply push the asteroid closer to Earth and setup operations. But then again, maybe it is just for the "lols". Either way, I'm not sure if this is worth the investment---Obama's idea or not.

-Ghoster

There is already a rock in Orbit, Its called the Moon. I just dont understand the reason for this, and why we cant just go back to the moon, if we are going to attempt to do this.

Okay I am about to go psy-fi here...

Perhaps it is practice for catching objects in space and establishing an orbit away from earth. What better place to put an unsafe object but the moon.

Now we going to get crazy. Perhaps NASA is aware of a inbound and unresponsive object of non natural orgins. Perhaps they intend to capture it and for safety concerns establish an orbit around the moon for safe keeping

Or...

They are just wasting money, weapons, space farming, etc etc

I thought nasa was closing.. why would they waste time and effort and money we don't have to do something so stupid,.. who cares about an dragging rocks around in space and sticking them around the moon, why not land on the moon and find out everything we can about it or something that actually matters..

Where the hell do they have the money to waste on this anyways, if nasa isn't building moon bases for us to go live on and colonize or prepping mars for us to live on when we kill this planet then shut it down what is the point is spending money on them it sjust a waste...

all we need is for something to go wrong and shoot a huge rock right towards earth and kills millions and be like oooppps our bad sorry earth from nasa...

Originally posted by Glassbender777
There is already a rock in Orbit, Its called the Moon. I just dont understand the reason for this, and why we cant just go back to the moon, if we are going to attempt to do this.

Really. what you say is true. Why not just go back to the moon to practice mining in space. Maybe it's to set up a close-by off moon base to gather data, on the folks already there....

This is fun....

Des

That's a lot of money to drag a relatively small rock to orbit around the moon.. I mean aren't there many other space missions that would be more beneficial than studying a 7m in diameter rock? That isn't an asteroid.. it's a meteorite..