Chinese Want to Capture an Asteroid Into Earth's Orbit

Ohhhh joy of joys.....

It only takes one time for the Chinese to screw-up the astro mathematics, and instead of parking this huge chunk of real estate into orbit it hit Earth instead!

I'm not keen on the Chinese singularly making such a decision that could effect the rest of the Earth's inhabitants! Just one screw-up would kill the rest of us...VERY BAD JUJU IMO!!!!!!!!!!

I'm with you on that....regardless of it being the Chinese, Russian, Americans, or even Jamaicans.

As long as they can mine some Unobtanium and sell it on the black market so I can get my hands on some I'm ok with it...

Best idea ever! Just imagine - a space program with balls.

can see some blokes out there working out how to attach a motor and bring one in for a landing instead of orbital parking. Or even if they can just get it inside the atmosphere and using those 'new' dirigbles(? spelling) being developed, lower it gently to the surface. (sic)

To the moon, Alice...

Which one, fatso?

Doesn't China have enough mineral reserves, then?

Cut it to chunks of 1 Kg each, divert it down with 7Km/s velocity into one of the deserts and observe the fine impacts with kinetic energy equals 0.5Kg x 49x10⁶ Joules each.

25 Megajoules is just below the energy of the US-Navy's latest railgun test.

The sand and dust of the desert will dissipate this energy.

But at reasonable rates of 1 shot per second you will get down only 86 tons per day and these difficult to recover?

So the atmosphere has to do a lot of the braking: smaller chunks a necessity.

Big showers of 1 cm diameter, 8g each, still near sonic velocity?

RHABE

I can see the military applications of this. "Better watch it or we will drop an asteroid on you." Can anybody say the new Nuke?!

More evidence of the Western mentality infecting the (previously) Asian perspective -- long-term vision. Seems sort of Rube Goldberg to me. Think: The chances of any one rock being unique in composition, in a field full of rocks, scattered about, is slight. I doubt if any one, on average, would prove to be that enlightening. Better to work on the travel technology of getting to these rocks, to enable going around the whole field and taking a look at more than one.

Asteroids are likely to be full of water. Water = fuel and life in space.

We have water here.

and Water ≠ fuel and life in space. Water = Water and the possibility of life in space.

Yesssss - we have water here. Bringing home an asteroid to get more water on the earth is stupid.

That's not why you capture asteroids.

Water = two parts hydrogen + one part oxygen = rocket fuel.

Energy Crisis solved!

The world is covered in Rocket Fuel!

Well, yes. If you had an inexhaustible source of power, say the sun, we could convert all the worlds oceans into hydrogen and oxygen, then burn it.

If you can do that in space, then you no longer need to lift millions of tons of fuel, oxygen and water out of the earth's gravity well in order to explore the solar system.

Or how about:

Alien water = water + microbe or virus that wipes out life (as we know it) on Earth.

Park it in lunar L4 (Lagrangian point) and start the first space ship yard. Put some space shuttle solid rocket boosters on it so if things start going wrong.

Spectroscopic surveys indicate that the surfaces of many asteroids simply is silicatic rock.

But a considerable fraction is iron or iron-nickel alloy.

Some are said to contain vast amounts of precious metals.

Water and ice below dust - yes, in the comets without doubt. But to get there for astronauts will be impossible if not somebody will invent a Schwarzschild-Generator: a small black hole with mass fed into and 30% of the mass coming out as radiation. Light-years away but sometimes good SF.

RHABE

Last estimation I read was 20 metric tons of the gold and platinum group per 1/4 mile dia metallic asteroid.

At 500 lbs per cubic foot the iron/nickel steel is where the money is.

$10,000 USD per Lb. to orbit, if you charge 5,000 USD and give away the machining then no one could under cut you until they started their own operation.

Will the Chinese confuse metric and imperial dimensions? Just a thought.

That wasn't a thought, it was a worry. They won't be confused if they look through Hubble's glasses.

Interesting, and you guys call yourself engineers? Someone proposses the greatest and most difficult engineering project in history and all the "western" engineers sneer at it. No wonder all the work is going elsewhere.

I do notice however that the article quotes no sources and gives no planned timeline for the project. The Chinese leaders and thinkers however tend to plan further ahead than us westerners who only seem to plan for the next election. This could be something on their to-do list for the next century.

I think its more a case of cynicism. Its also a good method of asking what if questions-brainstorming so as to speak.......or we just jealeous we didn't float the idea ourselves

Actually, engineers tend to be good at applying science and math to find pratical solutions to problems. They are not necessarily visionary. And a big factor imbedded in the word practical is cost.

Currently, there are more practical ways to solve problems than risking the lives of the entire planet.

So IF it so happens that they do happen to get it into Earth's orbit then what? How exactly to they intend "bring it down"? I got a dollar says it hits my house.

Instead of mining it on space, if scientists concentrate on developing ways and means to capture gravitational energy of the object while falling on earth and wireless transmission of huge energy so produced will be beneficial to all. (1) Tapping the gravitational energy will slow down speed of fall, so it will not damage earth surface and its inhabitants. (2) After it reaches earth, it can be mined as we like with extremely low cost compared to at space.

How to get the heat and convert to electricity?

Space Shuttle with propellers that drive turbines (one for any 10 tons)?

Very slow entrance profile seems to be the one and only working solution and at near 30km above ground a small parachute.

Attach a guiding unit or totally passive?

There was once (2300 years ago) some meteorite like this one that broke up into maybe 80 pieces high in the atmosphere and devastated a 50 x 100 km area near lake Chiemsee in southern Germany. Search for "Chiemgau Impact" if you are interested.

The Greek mythology says to this event that Phaeton - one of the many sons of Zeus - did steal and try the sun-chariot of Helios, but he deviated from the road and broke the car and the sun-like remnants hit the earth somewhere in the far northwest.

So better think about a smooth method to brake the parts to near sonic velocity by atmospheric drag. This seems to be possible if going up again if the actual drag is too high for integrity.

The same questions have been discussed some time ago here!

RHABE

Further reading on this great link you provided suggests some very disparate dating.

The only connection between a greek myth and a meteorite is the very questionable dating. It would take a lot more than this to break down my sceptical barriers.

However, the myth might be useful to get tourists to come visit. Worked at Tours.

All fine and dandy but how are you going to store the energy long enough to be usable? You might start with lightning, as far as I know we haven't mastered the storage of that yet.

Another issue would be heat dissipation. Even at 99.9% efficient the heat from 1/1000 of that energy would cause some serious issues. Don't get me wrong I like the idea but the Moon might be a better place for it or not.

Brad

You can't capture that energy, you have to apply energy to bring it down. It's far to dangerous of an idea to even try.

Hoping his research would lead him to the same conclusion.

It would be cheaper for them to just go and invade Australia. They would have all the "whadevva" they needed, including rear earths.

Australia would not fall on every ones heads either and the profits would be as high as the market is going to pay.

Our accent might get lost, and that would be a shame but who's gonna be counting in 50 years time.

Who comes up with such incredible crap?

Chinese will get board too, Ky.