The space tourism startup Mars One has been called many things over the years, some more flattering than others. Though it’s had the opportunity to fold many times, and in spite of claims it’s scamming its own customers, the project with the stated goal of sending people to Mars has come up with bewildering new techniques to keep its charade afloat.
Source: inverse.com
Two recent papers anticipate how nukes could be employed to either deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or blow it into smaller, less hazardous chunks. One, published in Acta Astronautica, proposes a vehicle called the Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), which could be deployed to nudge asteroids away from Earth, or in a worst case scenario, as a delivery mechanism for a nuclear device.
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Founded in late 2015, Relativity remained in stealth mode until last year, but now it is starting to come out of the shadows. And in doing so, the California-based company is revealing some pretty outsized ambitions. One day, in fact, the company intends to 3D print a rocket on Mars for a return trip to Earth.
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