Asteroids: Impacts vs. Captures

[lajoswinkler]

I'll send a probe impactor, and later, retrieval probe, followed by a crew visit.

[pauix]

Even if I fail, I'll try to land an asteroid at the VAB roof

[OrtwinS]

Capture a C class to build a spacestation on.

Minmus needs rings.

(crash)land an E class near KSC, dock supports and make it into a monument.

Dock wings to an A class rock and attempt to make it a flyable plane.

[SSSPutnik]

Maybe if I crash it right, everyone will stop pestering about all the LV-Ns I dumped.

[Technical Ben]

Personally I wan to make a base on a C class that orbits a fair distance from Kerbin.

Great idea.... no wait. I've got a better one. It will take careful planning, and SCIENCE! (Runs off laughing and mumbling)

[merendel]

If you frontally impact an asteroid on this kind of trajectory, it will simply be slowed down. Which means: the periapsis will drop even further, and you just made the situation worse.

This depends entirely on how far out you encounter the asteroid. If you encounter it in kerbins SOI then ya trying to ram it off a colision course is like pissing in the wind. On the other hand if you encounter it when its 50 odd days out from kerbins SOI? at that range the difference between hiting the planet and not even passing inside Mun's orbit is only 1 or 2 m/s and it does not realy mater what way you hit it. If you accelerate it prograde it will get there ahead of kerbin and miss, retrograde it will get there afterwards. Same deal with radial impacts while normal impacts will send it over a pole.

It really comes down to how much dV you can realisticly impart to the asteroid from an impact and if you can actualy hit it while going fast. I doubt you can impart enough of a shift on one of the big rocks by raming it. On the other hand it shouldnt be out of the realm of possibility to do it on an A/B rock as long as you cought it far enough out and could actualy manage to hit it.

[SSSPutnik]

Will the asteroids be able to be broken up by impacts?

(Ie loose rubble piles versus an iron or stony iron type).

IRL breaking one up if the pieces still impact is one of the worst things you could do unless its low mass.

[Streetwind]

This depends entirely on how far out you encounter the asteroid. If you encounter it in kerbins SOI then ya trying to ram it off a colision course is like pissing in the wind. On the other hand if you encounter it when its 50 odd days out from kerbins SOI? at that range the difference between hiting the planet and not even passing inside Mun's orbit is only 1 or 2 m/s and it does not realy mater what way you hit it. If you accelerate it prograde it will get there ahead of kerbin and miss, retrograde it will get there afterwards. Same deal with radial impacts while normal impacts will send it over a pole.

Good point! Impactors outside of SoI work, because at that point the asteroid isn't yet falling into the gravity well.

Will the asteroids be able to be broken up by impacts?

(Ie loose rubble piles versus an iron or stony iron type).

IRL breaking one up if the pieces still impact is one of the worst things you could do unless its low mass.

No, because asteroids use the spaceship code. An asteroid is essentially a single-part piece of debris with a very fancy model (this is in fact the reason why you can "dock" with it using the claw). You cannot break it up any more than you can break up an orange tank floating through space by itself. And the collision resistance stats on the asteroids are very high; they effortlessly survive collisions at 500m/s and more. So destroying it by shooting rockets at it, like you could with regular debris, isn't going to work either.

[cantab]

If an asteroid is on a collision course with Kerbin, you'll likely have to move it into a capture orbit. Altering its course enough to miss Kerbin by using an impactor will be nearly impossible.

Destroying the asteroid with an impactor, on the other hand, seems to be very possible. Certainly it looked like the asteroid went away in Danny's video. You need to hit them fast which makes it really hard to do, but that's what F9 is for.

[Guest]

Destroying the asteroid with an impactor, on the other hand, seems to be very possible. Certainly it looked like the asteroid went away in Danny's video. You need to hit them fast which makes it really hard to do, but that's what F9 is for.

In Danny's video... It blew up. Also he had to reload quicksaves 2 times in order to get a powerful impact.

[Guest]

What I would do is I would have an SSTO and It will be equipped with a probe impactor.

I would capture the asteroid... and If It failed... I would use the impactor .

[RuBisCO]

Well if they make the asteroids prone to massive explosions when impacted, I think impacting/crashing would be worth it for entertainment value. Mushroom clouds and craters is probably asking too much but I can dream.

Edited March 28, 2014 by RuBisCO

[Xacktar]

Imma try to give Minmus a moon of its own. It looks lonely.