I'm working on the outline for my new space opera WIP, and I want the climax to be about a terrorist group directing an asteroid towards an inhabited planet.
I need to somehow justify the good guys not simply blasting it into oblivion with their massive warship, so the idea is by the time they arrive it is already so close that blowing it up would result in a shotgun blast hitting the planet, rather than a cannonball. So they have to land on the asteroid themselves, and redirect it away.
Can someone help me with making the physics of this somewhat plausible? My initial idea was that the terrorists install a gravity generator (my handwave-y excuse for ships having on-board gravity) on the asteroid, but would giving it increased mass change its trajectory? That also leaves me with the problem of directing the asteroid away from the planet.
Installing starship engines on the asteroids kind of goes against my vision for the climax, but is that my only option?
I need to somehow justify the good guys not simply blasting it into oblivion with their massive warship, so the idea is by the time they arrive it is already so close that blowing it up would result in a shotgun blast hitting the planet, rather than a cannonball. So they have to land on the asteroid themselves, and redirect it away.
Can someone help me with making the physics of this somewhat plausible? My initial idea was that the terrorists install a gravity generator (my handwave-y excuse for ships having on-board gravity) on the asteroid, but would giving it increased mass change its trajectory? That also leaves me with the problem of directing the asteroid away from the planet.
Installing starship engines on the asteroids kind of goes against my vision for the climax, but is that my only option?