Word: asteroids
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Asteroids, most of them only a few miles in diameter, were once thought to be the debris of a planet that mysteriously broke up. Now scientists are more inclined to believe that they are pre-planetary building blocks that could not develop into a planet because of the powerful gravitational influence of nearby Jupiter. They are also too small to have experienced the geological activity that has obliterated traces of early events on the earth and other planets. Thus, the two scientists suggest, an expedition to an asteroid might yield important clues to the primordial history of the solar system...
...would avoid many of the difficulties of planetary exploration. Traveling in highly eccentric orbits, some of the miniature planets occasionally pass millions of miles closer to the earth than either Mars or Venus. A spacecraft would have to use only a small amount of fuel to land on an asteroid and blast off again; a twelve-mile-wide asteroid, for example, would exert about one ten-thousandth of the earth's gravitational pull. Even if a ten-ton spacecraft turned over as it touched down, it could be easily righted...
...Asteroid walks would be high adventure. Weighing less than an ounce in full space gear, an astronaut might jump half a mile off the surface before drifting gently back down. But Alfvèn and Arrhenius suggest limiting such activity to asteroids at least a mile across...
...undertake such an adventure in the near future, there is little time to lose. In 1975, Alfvèn and Arrhenius note, an asteroid that seems almost ideal for exploration will come within 14 million miles of earth. It is 15 miles long and five miles wide, and will be traveling only 5,600 m.p.h. relative to the earth. That asteroid is Buck Rogers' favorite: Eros...