Apophis Rendezvous and Landing Mission for 2029?

Thanks to Ron Baalke and sci.space.news I learn of this:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news178.html

So! Rather than depending on Apophis missing a "keyhole" why not a
rendezvous and landing mission that puts a rocket pack on this rock?

At a 2029 close approach of 31900 +/- 750 km why not? It'd be the
perfect opportunity to test out asteroid defense technology.

IMHO this makes a hell of a lot more sense than "asteroid prospecting"
and would actually give SLS something useful to do since we're wasting,
ahem I mean, budgeting for this thing anyway... Even if it is massive
overkill. I mean think of the PR and saved jobs! Not to mention the
children!

:-)

Dave

In article ,
David Spain wrote:

Thanks to Ron Baalke and sci.space.news I learn of this:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news178.html

So! Rather than depending on Apophis missing a "keyhole" why not a
rendezvous and landing mission that puts a rocket pack on this rock?

At a 2029 close approach of 31900 +/- 750 km why not? It'd be the
perfect opportunity to test out asteroid defense technology.

IMHO this makes a hell of a lot more sense than "asteroid prospecting"
and would actually give SLS something useful to do since we're wasting,
ahem I mean, budgeting for this thing anyway... Even if it is massive
overkill. I mean think of the PR and saved jobs! Not to mention the
children!

:-)

Dave

'Tain't that easy! If you put a rocket on that rock (a BIG rocket!), you
still have to establish attitude and control, else you just might divert
it INTO the Earth, rather than away from it.

On 2/22/2013 4:43 PM, Orval Fairbairn wrote:
'Tain't that easy! If you put a rocket on that rock (a BIG rocket!), you
still have to establish attitude and control, else you just might divert
it INTO the Earth, rather than away from it.


Actually you might need to land multiple rocket "packs" depending upon
object rotation, etc. Yes very complicated. Maybe we should get started
now? :-)

Dave

Oh and by the way, it could be just good for practice. If the keyhole is
missed no-one says we have to fire the rockets.

In fact, a scuttle code should probably be sent to disable the rockets
once a miss is known.

If we use a pea-shooter approach maybe only fire a couple of low-mass
practice peas...

Dave