And they can also pose a threat: in 2004, astronomers discovered that an asteroid named Apophis had an almost three-per-cent chance of striking Earth in 2029, conceivably killing millions. In the future, they might provide astronauts with fuel, oxygen, water, and construction material. They often contain valuable industrial elements, such as cobalt and platinum, which are getting harder to find terrestrially. Because most predate the existence of the Earth, they harbor clues about the solar system’s long history. The spacecraft would stow this bounty in a protective capsule, fly back home, and then parachute it to Earth.Īsteroids interest researchers for many reasons. The craft’s “beak” would be an unfolding eleven-foot-long mechanism with a cannister on its end, which would kick up material with a little blast of nitrogen. Price explained that the company’s engineers had developed technology that would allow a spacecraft about the size of a mail truck to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, then enter a hummingbird-like mode and “kiss” its surface. Over drinks, they scribbled ideas on cocktail napkins. The two men met that evening with Steve Price, then a director of business development for Lockheed Martin Space, on the patio of a hotel bar in Tucson. “They want to fly a spacecraft to an asteroid and bring back a sample. “I have Lockheed Martin in my office,” Drake said. On a brisk day in February, 2004, Dante Lauretta, an assistant professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona, got a call from Michael Drake, the head of the school’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
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