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scottb50
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Landing a man on the moon was a towering achievement. Now the president has given NASA an even harder job, one with a certain Hollywood quality: sending astronauts to an asteroid, a giant speeding rock, just 15 years from now....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_ ... a_asteroid
Even though an asteroid would be farther than the moon, the voyage would use less fuel and be cheaper because an asteroid has no gravity. The rocket that carries the astronauts home would not have to expend fuel to escape the asteroid's pull.
On the other hand, because of the lack of gravity, a spaceship could not safely land on an asteroid; it would bounce off the surface. Instead, it would have to hover next to the asteroid, and the astronauts would have to spacewalk down to the ground, Yeomans said.
Once there, they would need some combination of jet packs, spikes or nets to enable them to walk without skittering off the asteroid and floating away, he said.
"You would need some way to hold yourself down," Yeomans said. "You'd launch yourself into space every time you took a step."
Who writes this stuff? An asteroid, or even an atom has gravity, how much depends on it's mass. Landings have already been demonstrated on two different asteroids. True it might not be much gravity and if very small you could jump into an orbit or maybe reach escape velocity, but the blanket statement there is a lack of gravity is ridiculous.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_ ... a_asteroid
Even though an asteroid would be farther than the moon, the voyage would use less fuel and be cheaper because an asteroid has no gravity. The rocket that carries the astronauts home would not have to expend fuel to escape the asteroid's pull.
On the other hand, because of the lack of gravity, a spaceship could not safely land on an asteroid; it would bounce off the surface. Instead, it would have to hover next to the asteroid, and the astronauts would have to spacewalk down to the ground, Yeomans said.
Once there, they would need some combination of jet packs, spikes or nets to enable them to walk without skittering off the asteroid and floating away, he said.
"You would need some way to hold yourself down," Yeomans said. "You'd launch yourself into space every time you took a step."
Who writes this stuff? An asteroid, or even an atom has gravity, how much depends on it's mass. Landings have already been demonstrated on two different asteroids. True it might not be much gravity and if very small you could jump into an orbit or maybe reach escape velocity, but the blanket statement there is a lack of gravity is ridiculous.