"A first-ever robotic mission to identify, capture and redirect a near-Earth asteroid to a stable orbit around the moon, where astronauts will explore it in the 2020s."
Wow! That's pretty awesome, but I'm hoping they plan this one _very_ carefully and/or pick a small asteroid.
> We're already able to send probes to Pluto within a few kilometers, calculating an asteroid's orbit is well within our capabilities.
Yeah calculating the orbits and movements for a simple small mass might be fairly easy. But an asteroid is irregulary shaped which makes stuff quite complex. We have failed with Philae for example...
The only way this is going to work is with a powerful nuclear bomb mounted on an interstellar rocket to blow said astroid to pieces (and these pieces should be tiny enough to vanish during atmospheric reentry), should the need arise - however the EMP would fry at least the satellites in orbit, maybe also on the ground.
Calculating the orbit of an irregularly shaped object is not difficult, just use its center of mass. What is difficult is calculating an orbit around an irregularly shaped object, unless you are far enough away that you can still ignore the irregularities.
Philae was a mechanical failure that had little to do with the shape of the comet - its harpoons failed to fire.
Nukes might be a solution of last resort for a late detection, but with enough early warning there are far more gradual and precise ways to do it (and they don't sandblast the planet, either).
Wow! That's pretty awesome, but I'm hoping they plan this one _very_ carefully and/or pick a small asteroid.