NASA is planning to commandeer an asteroid, steer it back to earth and then put it in orbit around the moon.
This may sound like a plan hatched by an evil super-villain, but its actually part of the space agency's plans to protect the world from "doomsday" space rocks.
It revealed further details of its asteroid adoption plans today in a document discussing plans to set up a permanent base on Mars within a generation.
NASA hopes to send a spaceship onto an asteroid to dig out "several tonnes" and then put the remaining rock into a stable orbit around the moon, where it will stay for up to a century.
Astronauts would then visit this space rock to "touch, investigate, and experience an asteroid firsthand", whilst it would serve as a staging post for future missions to Mars.
" The Asteroid Redirect Mission also leaves deep-space infrastructure in cislunar [between Earth and the moon] space, providing an aggregation point to support the journey to Mars," NASA wrote.
"Following the first crewed mission, there will be on the order of several tons of material remaining in a stable orbit for at least 100 years, available for future exploration, scientific, commercial, or academic partners."
NASA originally planned to drag a whole asteroid back towards Earth, but this plan has been toned down.
This decision is not thought to be connected to the hysteria which developed last month after conspiracy theorists claimed a space rock would wipe humanity off the face of the planet.
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