[RayChuang88]

Given that it won't (in theory) hit the Earth until 25 years from now, how about developing an ion rocket and attaching it to the asteroid to slow it down enough so it can be parked in the gravitational zone between the Earth and the Moon? Given the generally very high quality of minerals you can get out of an asteroid, it might not be such a bad idea.

[NormsRevenge]

add a space elevator to your ion rocket/park the 'roid idea and we may be able to harvest asteroids quite readily. ;-)

[TexasTransplant]

Great minds think alike, that was the very first thing I thought of when I heard this story, Call Halliburton!

The second thing I thought of was it would be even more valuable as a Satellite half way between the Earth and the Moon, as a stationary mass of it's size we could use it as one end of a tether or the base of an Earth to the Moon Elevator. As an American I think that any World catastrophe should be righted and if there is a profit to be made, I'd like a shot at it. (Sorry Robert Heinlein was a positive influence in my life)

[RightWhale]

Given the generally very high quality of minerals you can get out of an asteroid

This one is too small to be economic.

[ngc6656]

Given that it won't (in theory) hit the Earth until 25 years from now, how about developing an ion rocket and attaching it to the asteroid to slow it down enough so it can be parked in the gravitational zone between the Earth and the Moon? Given the generally very high quality of minerals you can get out of an asteroid, it might not be such a bad idea.

Yours is an interesting proposal. To show how interesting it can be, let's assume that an ion rocket will be attached to 2004 MN4 tomorrow.

Where will we attach it? The asteroid is undoubtedly rotating, creating a monumental problem in determining where the rocket should be attached in order to force the asteroid away from Earth.

Over the next 25 years the asteroid will travel about 14.5 billion miles. From that distance (imagine the asteroid's orbit is stretched out into a straight line 14.5 billion miles long) target Earth subtrahends an angle of about 0.1 arc seconds. Out of the uncountable possible scenarios, one is if the persons deciding where to place the ion rocket make an error of 0.1 arc seconds in directing the force of the rocket in the proper direction, they may cause the asteroid to hit Earth rather than miss it.

It might be less risky to attempt to blow the sucker up into lots of smaller, less threatening chunks, IMO.

[SLB]

I start getting social security in 2016. That is fine with me.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The problem is, we can't predict it's orbit correctly now (unaltered) much less predict what an (unknown, unbuiltm unlaunched, undirected, uncontrolled ion engine would do to the asteroid.

We don't have the match for a three-body gravitational problem, much less a seven body problem: earth, asteroid, mars, venus, jupiter, and the moon are all affecting its path, and it's path changes after each near-collision.

Equally likely is increasing the chances of a hit.

Also, we don't even know it's current orbit (mass, speed, direction, rotation) accurately enough to predict a future one, even if we could do the calculations.

[I'm ALL Right!]

I have a better idea. Let's send up Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck. They could drill into the asteroid, drop in a nuclear bomb....

[sonofatpatcher2]

This idea makes too much sense! If we did it, the Dems would just tax it out of existence...

[DanielLongo]

Sounds like a mining career for the people who do those jobs that Americans just don’t want to do. Maybe there is something to this immigration bill after all.