It's not exactly a phaser, and right now it's only conceptual, but it's still a space shotgun.Honeybee Robotics is working in conjunction with NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission to develop a gun meant to fire projectiles at asteroids, and to test the strength and composition of boulders on their surfaces.The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) aims to chip off a massive boulder from an asteroid and shift it into the Moon's orbit, so we can hopefully send manned spacecraft between the boulder and the moon, collecting samples and advancing the spaceflight experience to prepare us for Mars missions.But before ARM chooses a boulder for retrieval, it needs to know that the space rock is above a certain measure of strength, and will hold up during the retrieval process. That's where this space gun comes in. By firing a projectile at a boulder's surface and measuring its rebound speed, physicists can determine the strength and solidity of the rock. Another option involves a paintball-like projectile that will only explode when the boulder meets the mission's standards.Space paintball sounds like a twelve year-old's fever dream, but it could be reality in a few years. Fire away.