UPDATE (08 February 2007): Ed tells me not to take the $200M-300M figure as an exact estimate for the gravity tractor (potential misquote from the reporter). I think these issues point out that good system designs of actual missions that include all major disciplines (including cost and operations) need to be performed on many asteroid mitigation techniques.
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My question: Do we have a mission design that this cost estimate is based on? How was this cost estimate arrived at?
"NASA astronaut and former University of Hawaii solar physicist Edward Lu is calling for a new spacecraft that would divert asteroids on a path to slam into Earth...The small space tractor, costing between $200 million and $300 million, would hover near an asteroid to exert enough gravitational pull that the space rock's orbit would change and a collision with our planet would be averted, Lu said before a crowd packed into a 300-capacity auditorium at the University of Hawaii-Manoa Monday night."
"Astronaut Calls for Asteroid Defense"
Associated Press
25 January 2007
Link: Article
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