🚀 go-pugleaf

>-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>
>-Bombs are actually a relatively good way to move asteroids.  Comets
>-are a difficult case, because they are probably fragile and because they
>-probably have a thin crust with concentrated volatiles underneath.  A
>-small nearby nuclear explosion would blow off the crust on one side, and
>-the result would be a tremendous spill of gas from the comet itself.
>-If you knew what you were doing, and did it carefully, this could permit
>-steering a comet with far less effort than the brute-force approach.
>

Could you use a large laser for "steering" a comet?  I don't know how tight 
you can keep a beam over planetary distances, but if the idea is delivering 
energy "gently" to a comet to cause it to outgas in a preferred direction 
without shattering it, a well-placed energy beam seems like an interesting
candidate.
-- 
Mike Heney                |   Senior Systems Analyst and     |  Reach for the
mheney@access.digex.com   |  Space Activist / Entrepreneur   |  Stars, eh?
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