Wild 'Hitchhiker' Spacecraft Idea Could Harpoon Comets

A NASA spacecraft may one day sling itself from one comet or asteroid to another using a harpoon and a superlong tether. That's the idea behind Comet Hitchhiker, a proposal that received funding last year from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which seeks to encourage the development of transformative exploration technologies. "This kind of hitchhiking could be used for multiple targets in the main asteroid belt or the Kuiper Belt, even five to 10 in a single mission," Comet