Asteroid belt

Last Edited By Krjb Donovan
Last Updated: Mar 11, 2014 07:55 PM GMT

Question

Can you give me a quote about the asteroid belt for a project I am doing for science?

Answer

Hi Bradley, What used to be the vermin of the night sky have now become the darlings. We are now looking upon the asteroids for additional raw materials...iron, nickel, and other elements....that we can someday exploit and mine in orbit, and ship the contents back to the Earth for our use. They also make excellent outposts for future colonization of the Solar System. So now we think of mining colonies and outposts as opposed to just....garbage out there.

Also, someday a long time from now, our decendents are going to want to nudge the Earth to a more distant (higher) orbit from the sun, as the sun enters the Red Giant phase in about 2 billion years. Yes, moving the Earth can be done by our decendents, by directing and routing a 100 mile wide asteroid to just miss the Earth once every 500 years. The small gravitational nudges will slowly move (raise) the Earth a few million miles farther from the sun, thus gaining an extra 1/2 billion years of habitable life on this planet as our star moves to the red giant phase of its life...but there is no hurry to start doing this as we have a few hundreds of millions of years before that project has to begin. They will have the advanced technology to make sure the appropriate asteroid just misses the Earth, and doesn't collide with it. Clear Skies, Tom Whiting Erie, PA

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