comes this unsettling news:
Sun Will Vaporize Earth Unless We Can Change Our Orbit
I’d say that that’s global warming taken to extremes, right? And the bad thing is, it’ll only take a billion years for the earth to be “a very hot, dry, and uninhabitable ball.” Yikes. That’s like, just around the corner…
Don’t let Al Gore get ahold of this, though; I’m sure he and his buds will want to use it as a reason to slap some tax on somebody…
Byron Harvey 
Great link, which I’m adding to my favourites.
I did my Astronomy MSc at Sussex Uni (Sept 1996 to Aug 1997)- Robert Smith, mentioned in the article, was my supervisor for my projec.
“…harnessing the gravitational effects of a close passage by a large asteroid to “nudge” the Earth’s orbit gradually outwards…”
A large asteroid. I can see it now. Someone falls asleep on shift and BAM.
Hey wait! I saw this episode on Star Trek!
I’m starting to see it more clearly. You have to increase the Earth’s angular momentum, and so reduce the asteroid’s, which brings the asteroid closer in to the Sun…
I mean, this has been done on much smaller scales. Any spacecraft that makes a fly-by of Earth alters the orbit slightly, a consequence of altering the craft’s path- “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”; one of Newton’s laws..