Asteroid Deflection: The Paintball Solution

Planetary Resources has us thinking about mining the asteroids to extract useful materials, but learning more about these objects will benefit us in all kinds of ways. Not only do asteroids offer up clues about the early Solar System, but getting to understand their composition and structure will be a key element in any future plans to change an asteroid trajectory. The topic comes to mind periodically as various asteroids make close approaches, and right now I’m looking at asteroid 2012 DA14, which will close to within 22,000 kilometers this coming February.
2012 DA14 is a small asteroid, discovered in early 2012 at the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain, and it is not an impact threat for us next year, although prudence dictates keeping an eye on it for future orbits — the object is recently enough discovered that we’ll need to study it longer to get a better read on future encounters. I see that the University of Central Florida is organizing a viewing party in Orlando on February 15 to track the progress of the asteroid as it zips past us, with Michael A’Hearn, who led the Deep Impact mission, and Harold Reitsema (B612 Foundation) on ...