NASA wants to turn a small asteroid into a space station

http://cygo.com/space-station/asteroid-station/

NASA scientists want to lasso an asteroid the size of two double-decker buses and turn it into a space station orbiting the moon. If approved, the mission could help open up space for private entrepreneurs who have already expressed their intention to search for mineral wealth in asteroids. Pictured is an artist's concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft taking a sample from asteroid 1999 RQ36. RQ36, a chunk of rock and dust about 1,900 feet in diameter could tell us how the solar system was born

NASA scientists want to lasso an asteroid the size of two double-decker buses and turn it into a space station orbiting the moon.

At over $2 billion, the mission could help open up space for private entrepreneurs. NASA says it has the technology to track, capture and relocate a 500 ton asteroid.

It could be used as a space base for astronauts on their way to Mars.

In April, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their neighbors at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, northeast of L.A., produced their feasibility study for the mission.

They would launch an asteroid capture capsule on an Atlas-V rocket, aiming it at the one of five candidate asteroids they identify between the Earth and the moon each year. The solar-powered capsule would close in on the asteroid and snare it with a 16-metre diameter bag.

The Caltech scientists suggested it could be steered into a permanent orbit above the moon.

The bag would close around the rock using draw strings.

NASA wants to use the new station as a laboratory for experiments for the Orion as well as a possible staging post for astronauts en route to Mars after 2025.

NASA has a list of rocks it wants to probe, including Ceres and Pluto.