NASA to Look into NEO Threat Response Proposals
Interesting article here: http://www.space.com/news/060516_nasa_neo.html
I contacted Lee Valentine to urge SSI involvement in this study. He wasn't sure if it was beneficial to try and engage with NASA on this issue, but asked my opinion about it. My response was this:
I think that if there's an officially-published list out of NASA of "viable methods for moving asteroids", and mass drivers are absent from the list that later on people will go, "Mass drivers, hmmm, didn't someone prove that they really wouldn't work a while back?" based on nothing other than the previous fact.
You might already be aware that many in the space advocacy community are walking around with a vague notion that somebody uncovered some fatal flaw in the O'Neill proposal for no other reason than that all of the discussion throughout the 90's was about Mars colonization.

Interesting article here: http://www.space.com/news/060516_nasa_neo.html
I contacted Lee Valentine to urge SSI involvement in this study. He wasn't sure if it was beneficial to try and engage with NASA on this issue, but asked my opinion about it. My response was this:
I think that if there's an officially-published list out of NASA of "viable methods for moving asteroids", and mass drivers are absent from the list that later on people will go, "Mass drivers, hmmm, didn't someone prove that they really wouldn't work a while back?" based on nothing other than the previous fact.
You might already be aware that many in the space advocacy community are walking around with a vague notion that somebody uncovered some fatal flaw in the O'Neill proposal for no other reason than that all of the discussion throughout the 90's was about Mars colonization.

Tis is probably way, way out there but... Is it not possible to
initiate robot mining technology at a considerable distance to at
least make use of the asteroid material as well as divert it from its
course? Of course I don't mean 'Right Now' but at least a plan for the
future.
Jim Mackey