DART

Tomorrow NASA is to launch a DART at an asteroid. The plan is to test how to redirect a nearby space rock using inelastic collisions from Newton.

When I saw this in the news I vaguely remembered that project... being canceled. Sure enough: the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which was supposed to happen next month, is dead. But instead we're getting another mission that does the same thing under a different name, launching a week earlier. Um.

Seems like bureaucratic shuffling to me. But hey.

I expect this collision will end up knocking rubble about. Possible it doesn't move the main body out by much, diffusing much momentum to kicking pebbles off the other side. Still, knowing that is good too.

Besides the benefit to planetary defence, someday we might want to move a rock (or part of it) not just away but closer. Say we had a monster like Eros in TLL4, or SVL4.

LAUNCHED 11/24: Falcon 9 does the job. We've long been at the point that's not even newsworthy.