Nasa plan to capture asteroid and then drag it into orbit

An ambitious mission that will visit a comet and pluck a boulder from its surface to create an orbiting base for astronauts has been given the final go-ahead. A robot shipwill pluck a large boulder off an asteroid and sling it aroundthe moon, becoming a destination to prepare for futurehuman missions to Mars, the U.S. space agency has revealed. The so-called Asteroid Redirect Mission is estimated to costabout 1.4 billion not including launch costs and is targetedfor liftoff in December 2021. In the Spacecraft Structures Lab at NASA's Langley Research Center, the Asteroid Redirect Mission robotic contact and restraint system is prototyped and tested. A robot ship will pluck a large boulder off an asteroid and drag it into orbit around the moon, becoming a'testbed' for future human missions to Mars, the U.S. space agency has revealed.