(AA Institute) wrote in message . com...
Imagine if this could be done in the next 30 years, we'd have not only
established a foothold at a single location like the Moon or Mars...
but the whole solar system could become within reach!

http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagen...arth-ring.html

And the stars too...

Kill all birds with just one stone... or one asteroid for that matter!
Other than simply the long timescales necessary for such a project, I
don't see any reason why we can't or should not do this...

Abdul Ahad

This is a bit ambitious for a first mission.

You mention a delta V change of 1.9 + km/s, for an object of about 64
billion tons. This is even before bringing it down to 40,000km
altitude.

assume you use electric propulsion, with an exhaust velocity of
20km/s, you still need about 6.4 billion tons of fuel.

As you say, this is "non-trivial".

Your best bet is to find a 3,000 ton Near Earth Rock (~15m diameter),
and bring this in a High Earth Orbit (400,000km). This could be done
with a probe weighing 50 tons (= LEO launch mass of about 150 tons),
using the rock material as a propellant.

Then process the asteroid, in High Earth Orbit, to create larger
missions. Eventually, you'll get up to billion ton rocks.

Critical to this is the ability to turn NEOs into solar power
generators.