k wrote:

Two NASA astronauts have figured out a way to create a real-life version of a "Star Wars" "tractor beam" to keep an asteroid from crashing into Earth.

By hovering nearby for perhaps a year, the astronauts say, the spacecraft's own gravity could minutely slow the asteroid's progress or speed it up, a process that 10 or 20 years later would cause the rogue rock to miss Earth by a comfortable margin.

[Uh, not *exactly* a tractor beam, but still an ok idea. -k]

The APoD photo and description are ever so much better. You've quoted a science journalist out of their depth.

They're proposing a space tractor or tugboat. Big, slow moving, mechanically simple (well, if ion propulsion can be considered simple) -- tractor.

RE: A New Path for Asteroids