Editing Asteroid impact avoidance (section)

=== Conventional rocket engine ===
Attaching any [[spacecraft propulsion]] device would have a similar effect of giving a push, possibly forcing the asteroid onto a trajectory that takes it away from Earth. An in-space rocket engine that is capable of imparting an impulse of 10<sup>6</sup> N·s (E.g. adding 1&nbsp;km/s to a 1000&nbsp;kg vehicle), will have a relatively small effect on a relatively small asteroid that has a mass of roughly a million times more. Chapman, Durda, and Gold's white paper<ref>Chapman, Clark R. and Daniel D. Durda. [http://www.internationalspace.com/pdf/NEOwp_Chapman-Durda-Gold.pdf The Comet/Asteroid Impact Hazard: A Systems Approach] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002442/http://www.internationalspace.com/pdf/NEOwp_Chapman-Durda-Gold.pdf |date=March 4, 2016 }}, Boulder, CO: Office of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute, Space Engineering and Technology Branch, [[Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory]].</ref> calculates deflections using existing chemical rockets delivered to the asteroid.
[[File:Plasma thruster asteroid.webp|thumb|3D sketch of a [[Pulsed plasma thruster|pulsed plasma electromagnetic thruster]] attaching to an asteroid for asteroid impact avoidance]]
Such direct force rocket engines are typically proposed to use highly-efficient [[electrically powered spacecraft propulsion]], such as [[ion thruster]]s or [[VASIMR]].