[Army Air Corps]

An asteroid could be captured if they wanted.

By what means? I ask out of sincere curiousity. I have read about means to deflect but not capture one.

[RightWhale]

To capture requires two impulses. The first impulse changes the orbit so it has the required apogee and the second, some time later when the asteroid has arrived in the right place but wrong velocity, changes the velocity so apogee and perigee are correct. The asteroid will then be in orbit around earth where it may be picked over later at some convenient time.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Eeeasy!!! Just go out to the asteroid, vaporize the rock, form it into a giant solar sail and sail it into earth orbit.

All right, we can get there with an Ares rocket (if it ever flies that is). Vaporize it how? Capture the vapor in what? form the sail by what means? Navigate it how? These are just details. As with any good "space mining" scheme these things will be worked out later.

Engineering is one skill set, visionary thinking is completely different. :-)