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You should add the PURPOSE of lassoing the asteroid to your original post (to bring it to the moon for exploration by astronauts).

Personally, I find this mission to be well... not that amazing. I mean, I don't know what they expect to find on this asteroid that we haven't already speculated about. Don't get me wrong, I think all kinds of space exploration to be fascinating, it's just that I can't see this as amazing as other potential projects that have been mentioned in past years (see the link below, where we could "sail" to the nearest star in just a few decades).

I think this concept is interesting, and I don't see why this can't be done, it's just that there are other projects that look cooler to me.

However, it does say that in your article, using this technology with the asteroid may help humanity to send a manned mission to Mars, which would be absolutely stellar (pun intended).

Funny Cowboy Bebop title, I appreciated that.

Here's the link to the space sailing article.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason...-starshot.html

Finding out more about asteroids could be more beneficial than a manned mission to mars though, knowing more accurately what the composition of asteroids is could provide us with the knowledge of a source of materials - i.e. what usable materials are available in the asteroid belt.

NASA must think it is a more useful or more achievable mission which is why it is done. How realistic is it to retrieve a meaningful amount of materials from asteroids in the near future though? Probably not very yet

It's a pretty good mission, I hope they go with the gravity tractor method since it's clearly more versatile and just better overall...

If we can pull asteroids in to luna or earth orbit we can mine sooo much. If we want to seriously colonise space we need resources in space and factories in space. It's not viable to keep launching stuff a couple of tons at a time, it's way too expensive.

Right now there are a lot of companies gearing up for asteroid mining, but no one has proven it. This mission is a stepping stone on NASA's mars roadmap. If it's successful, then other companies will mimic it, pulling extremely valuable asteroids into orbit. The obvious targets are things like 2011 UW15 which contain millions of tons of high value minerals (in this case $5 trillion USD in platinum). If that could be brought in to orbit, that would mean an absurd amount of resources. Other targets are high ice content asteroids (for fuel, oxygen, and water), and pretty much everything else (no one wants to cart steel in to orbit).

NASA is well known for not managing budget all that well (look at ISS) but it's very necessary. No one else is really willing to take huge risks the way they do. Even though they always seem to waste money, they are probably one of, if not the, highest return science agencies.

It would be huge if this mission was a success, you can expect that within a 5 years it will be done a dozen times more and only increase from then. Low cost gravity tractors probes will be bringing in bank (y)

Wht i just saw got me confuesd any ways i think there just wasting money unless if this was a succes
But this could all be crazy talk....Idk
this money could help other people...+++there wasting stuff tht could help poor countries....idk man like i said before..i think its crazy talk ._.

This could be useful, as there might be some unknown substances within the asteroids that, after are period of time, could be used to further space exploration, and increase the safety of on board members.

Space exploration has an insanely high return on investment, the technology developed is invaluable.

For example if you develope a cheap easy reliable way to recycle water in space, you can do that on the ground. If you develop a complete protein algae that can be grown in space, it can be grown on the ground. If you develop a way to fasten space suits, it can be used on the ground, if you develop a way to write in 0g, same thing, etc, you get the picture.