``We could have a demonstration mission to explore extraction of water ice from this object ... finished within six years if we wanted to, by the year 2006,'' Ostro said. ``We could have a human round-trip mission to KY26 completed by about the year 2015.''
Ostro, speaking at a conference on asteroids, comets and meteors at Cornell University, said such a mission would be in keeping with long term goals of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
``This is in the context of NASA's primary goal, which is trying to find missions that merge development in science technology and resource potential,'' he said.
Even though KY26 was first observed as it passed within 500,000 miles (800,000 km) of earth in 1998, it posed no threat to humans: highly fragile, it would explode as it entered the upper atmosphere, creating a fabulous light show and sending small pieces drifting harmlessly to the ground.
Ostro and others at a news conference noted recent Hollywood attention paid to the prospect of large asteroids and comets striking earth with catastrophic results, but said quite the opposite would be true in the case of KY26.
``With the bigger objects, we fear them ... we see them as killer asteroids,'' Ostro said. ``From this object's point of view, it should fear us, because from this object's point of view, we will assimilate it.''
This asteroid is thought to be loaded with water, but the water is bound to organic chemicals, possibly including such basic building blocks of life as amino acids and nucleic acids. There is no life on KY26, but the basics for sustaining life could be there.
That means KY26 could be mined for samples, hollowed out and turned into a natural vessel for humans, who would be able to distill life-giving water and oxygen from the asteroid.
Ostro estimated the asteroid could be ``mined'' of enough water and oxygen to keep 1,000 people alive -- or enable many return visits to KY26 and make it a stepping stone to other space missions, possibly including Mars.
He estimated that any spacecraft sent to an asteroid would cost at least $50 million and possibly as much as $100 million.
Facing some scepticism from reporters, Ostro said, ``If you say this is unrealistic, then just forget Mars altogether.''
``Scientifically, that's to me a more interesting mission than the Mars mission, because the primitive materials that are in that asteroid come from the beginning of things,'' David Meisel, a radar astronomer at the State University of New York at Genesee.
``Mars is a geologically interesting place, but like the earth, it's been turned up and down and sideways ... I personally am very much convinced that a mission to this asteroid would be very very beneficial,'' Meisel said.
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous is set to meet up with asteroid Eros on February 14, 2000, and has already taken pictures of its fast flyby of asteroid Mathilde.
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