Jose Pina Coelho wrote in message

Time to own up... Yes that was *exactly* the inspiration! Although
creating a ring was never a sought after goal in my propsal, rather a
*desirable* side-effect from carving out my asteroid to build a
habitat within its interior.

Desirable ? Poluting an already congested space with megatons of rock
shards ?

So, why don't you carve your habitat in the place where you find the
asteroid, then leave the rubble there and bring the thing here, not it's
probably 1/3 of the mass, hence easier/cheaper to move ?

You're right. That's exactly what I did in the end:-

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

I mean... that's exactly how things will be done in the end by a
future generation. The future hasn't happened yet... I must remember
that!

Although having said that, in an *alternate reality*, in a parallel
universe... somewhere, the AA Institute is leading a consortium of
national governments, world space agencies and corporate conglomerates
to advance a planet-wide effort toward building the Celestial Titanic
- even as I write!!!

Dreams...

AAI