The other way of doing things is for the company to retrieve smaller asteroids, put them into orbit around Earth or the moon, and then dissect them at its leisure.

ECONOMIST: Mining asteroids: Going platinum | The

The moon is also spinning, as it rotates around the earth, covering a mile in less than two seconds even as the earth spins madly and jets through space.

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In their paper, the co-authors argue that gravitational tidal heating caused by the gravitational friction of an earth-like exo-moon on an eccentric orbit around a Jupiter-like planet lying at a Jupiter-like distance from its parent star, could, in fact, create habitable conditions.

FORBES: Earth-Like Exo-Moons Can Lurk Well Beyond Planetary Habitable Zones, Say Astronomers

In his version (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865, and its sequel, All Around the Moon, 1870), an aluminum craft launched from central Florida achieves a speed of 24, 500 miles per hour, circles the moon and splashes down in the Pacific.

FORBES: Eerily Prescient

It was discovered in 1986 and it takes a convoluted horseshoe path around our planet as it is tossed about by the Earth's and the Moon's gravity.

BBC: New 'moon' found around Earth

"In a nutshell, the plan in NASA's hands calls for catching an asteroid with a robotic spacecraft and towing it back toward Earth, where it would then be placed in a stable orbit around the moon, " read a statement from the office of Florida Sen.

CNN: Forget falling stars: NASA plans to catch an asteroid

On the moon, we had one-sixth of Earth's gravity, allowing Neil and me to move around easily in the Eagle to put on equipment for our walk.

WSJ: Buzz Aldrin on His Lunar Home, the Eagle