Pingie: HTTP:: UK Experts Work on Asteroid Defense Spacecraft

HTTP:: UK Experts Work on Asteroid Defense Spacecraft
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An asteroid impact would be so devastating to our planet, that the survival of life itself on it would be jeopardized. Although, as far as we know now, the threat of that happening in the short term is fairly small, British experts from the Stevenage space company EADS Atrium are currently working on a new spacecraft, a “gravitational tractor” that would have the ability to deter a space rock from a dangerous course years before it comes within close range of the planet. Weighing as much as ten tonnes, the new instrument of averting apocalypse would rely solely on gravity to do its job. According to the BBC News, the idea is still in its early days, and a prototype of the new defense system has yet to be developed. The effort, however, is not ludicrous and makes so much more sense once you take into account the figures set forth by NASA's Near-Earth Object Program. The figures show that 1,069 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA) lurk in our cosmic surroundings, eithe!
r of which could be nudged off its current orbit by a large number of factors. “Frankly I thought it was crackers. I thought it would never work,” the Head of Exploration and Business at EADS Astrium, Dr. Ralph Cordey, said in talking about the time when he first heard the idea. It was proposed by two NASA astronaut...
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