On: NASA official warns private sector: We’re moving o...

[rm_-rf_slash]

I know little of space physics, but wouldn't the additional gravity of an asteroid disrupt tidal patterns on earth?

[Pinckney → rm_-rf_slash]

No. Any asteroid we could reasonably capture is much too small to have any significant impact.

[nerfhammer → Pinckney]

What if we mess it up and it comes tumbling toward earth?

[personjerry → nerfhammer]

This is the sort of thing we would verify the calculations of, many times, and consider problems ahead of time.

[InclinedPlane → nerfhammer]

We lack the ability to move a large enough asteroid to do any serious damage.

[Pinckney → InclinedPlane]

Not yet, but perhaps in the near future. The National Space Society has a proposal up for capturing 99942 Apophis via gravitational slingshot, which would be fairly damaging if we managed to crash it.

[8note → nerfhammer]

it would likely burn up on entry

[slyall → rm_-rf_slash]

Lets put it this way. The largest asteroid in the inner Solar system, Ceres has a mass of 1.3% of the moon.

The size of asteroid we are talking about here is likely to be closer to a container ship or maybe a small hill. Perhaps 1 millionth of the size/mass of Ceres at the most.