(AA Institute) wrote:

Before anybody gives me that look...

Too late

Suppose an asteroid somehow, through some super, far future
engineering achievement has been captured into orbit around the Earth.
Now suppose we want to carve it out by detonating a series of missiles
that incrementally hollow their way into the body of such an asteroid.
[...]
The material excavated out of the body would create a thin ring system
around the Earth, as I try to illustrate he-

I think the Moon may scupper your plans somewhat. It's friggin' huge
by moon standards, particularly compared to the shepherd moons which
help stabilise Saturn's rings. Just look what it does to the oceans
here on Earth. I doubt a stable ring system is possible for Earth, but
I've not done the calculations (or run the simulations, which is
probably the best way to look at this). Even if it is possible I very,
very much doubt you could create such a ring system in the way you
describe without raining a lot of crud down onto Earth in the process.
Even ignoring the big lumps you would put a massive number of small
particles into a variety of orbits which would make space flight near
the Earth extremely hazardous.

I wouldn't want to be on an orbital space station with some loon
blowing up asteroids around the same planet.


Tim
--
Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do.