How can I catch an asteroid?

I'm interested in asteroid mining, but don't have the infrastructure in place to process ores and the like in space. However, I've got a nice planet-based refinery setup where I could easily process an asteroid, except for one problem: it's on a planet, and my asteroids are in space.

I'd like to get my asteroids, which vary in composition, but are generally between 50 and 300 meters in radius, from their high-speed orbits around the sun onto the surface of my planet, which has a similar size, gravitational pull, and atmosphere to Earth. I'd also like to do so without destroying huge tracts of land, causing tsunamis, triggering extinctions, or any of the other general badness that usually comes when asteroids deorbit themselves into the ground.

What's the best way for me to go about doing this? How can I deorbit and 'catch' an asteroid without anything horrible happening?

posted almost 8 years ago

ckersch‭

31 reputation 30 2 4 0