Concerning the Study of Asteroids and Their Exploitation

[The Silent Majority]

So, with the ARM, I've thought a little about how to go around studying asteroids without telescopes, robotic missions etc etc...

As I understand it, in the near future, NASA is planning on putting a captured asteroid in Lunar orbit.

I am assuming that in the near future, in order to get multiple trips to the same asteroid, that it would be more efficient to put the asteroid into a near-Earth orbit and send up multiple rockets (or hopefully SSTO's like Skylon (if that works out)) than send one or two missions out of the Earth's SOI or even to the moon.

Disclaimer: this is a topic I know little about and even less about the specifics of the NASA Mission.

Is my thinking correct in that moving the asteroid (without areocapture of course) would be more efficient than putting it into the moon's orbit?

Obviously with mining it's more efficient to break down the Asteroid and just bring the materials back, but to study the Asteroid and set up long term experiments and large equipment wouldn't LEO work better?

[Dr. Kriger]

Like you I know very little about this whole thing but I am assuming that a LEO would endanger many of Earth's satellites. It would probably expose the asteroid to a constant stream of impacts from space debris as well.

[YourEverydayWaffle]

I bet it's because it would take a lot quick thrust power that the asteroid pushing engines (I believe they intend to push, not pull it) won't be easily made with. I think it requires a lot of precision to get things into the right LEO without foreign governments getting angry for taking up space. And imagine if they accidentally de-orbited the thing. Then you've got an asteroid made of who-knows-what hurtling toward Earth. The moon requires less quick actions and it presumably has a more expendable surface in the minds of NASA. I don't know, just my theory.