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Capturing Asteroids With Nets

Someday, we're going out into space and we're going to somehow wrangle an asteroid into a position where we can render it down into useful materials.

Here's one design by TransAstra called "Queen Bee" to be launched by SpaceX.

As you can see, science fiction author V.E. Thiessen thought about this idea in some detail in his short story Asteroid Justice, published by Planet Stories in 1947:

With her remote controls she was slowing the rockets of the net, as she increased her own speed. In a few minutes both ship and netted meteor would be hanging motionless alongside, the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.

I hope that TransAstra retains the boyish charm of this original story as they pursue the tough engineering work necessary to make this happen in reality.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/19/2024)

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