Re:NASA to keep its 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe running for ...
by nephihaha on Saturday August 08, 2026 @09:14AM
(#49221570)
I've always thought asteroids could be used as automated "weather stations" with probes not just as mission targets in themselves. These could be updated or maintained occasionally.
If you want to land on an asteroid/rock, either you match speed with it, in which case you already had enough speed to go wherever it's going, or you intercept it at a different speed, in which case you get smashed to dust if your speed was any more than a few m/s different.
Maybe you didn't mean this, but it's a common enough misconception. People even on HN were suggesting a spacecraft could hitch a ride on ʻOumuamua to get a quick way to a different solar system.