MIT Researchers Develop a System for Astronauts to Walk on Asteroids

Christopher Carr, a postdoctoral associate in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science and Ian Garrick-Bethell, also a graduate student in that department, have devised a way to aid astronauts on their upcoming asteroid missions. Using the scientists' tether system, astronauts could stroll across the surface of the asteroid, collect samples or explore these rocks in outer space without floating away.

Carr stated that the ability to visit asteroids can be invaluable for testing equipment for manned mission to Mars and knowing how to tether an asteroid will also be useful if there will come a time that these space rocks will be in a collision course with Earth. Exploring asteroids would also let scientists study the composition and history of asteroids which could provide an insight about our solar system, more particularly, as to how the planets formed.

According to the scientists, exploring an asteroid may prove to be more difficult than exploring a planet since asteroids have very little gravity and an astronaut who will try to walk on one might fly off or hover above the asteroid's surface. Carr and Garrick-Bethell says that tying a lightweight rope around an asteroid could solve the problem of astronauts flying off the asteroid. Astronauts will just attach themselves to the asteroid when the rope is in place so that they can walk along its surface.