Moon bases too far, captured asteroid nearer :-)

Okay to hell with it, shoot me down if you have to but I think that
"Ahad" guy had a neat idea and was on the right track with his
"Celestial Titanic" ship:

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

Just look at all these squillions of $$$ benefits:

-Save billions of dollars in ferrying up parts from Earth to build the
large-scale outer framework

-Save thousands of man hours and hundreds of radiation-exposed
astronaut spacewalks for station assembly

-Asteroid surface offers strong commercial potential for mining
precious minerals

-Bulk of the project from in-situ excavation, transportation of
asteroid to high Earth orbit and some initial mining, performed
robotically. Human crews arrive near the end to "seal the entrance" and
establish colony

-Opportunity to experiment re-creating a "miniature Earth" with
gravity, biosphere and self-sustaining ecosystem within a natural,
rocky structure much like Earth's own crust

-Logistically more attractive for easier access from the ground than
either a base on the Moon or one established on Mars

-First "truly promising", permanent off-Earth colony potential within
decades!

-Potentially a full-function transportation vessel for sailing the
great interplanetary or even interstellar oceans of space...

Why oh why do I want to go all the way to that grey thing, when there's
more economical business to be done nearer home with the right rock
from outer space? This is a smart idea - was a smart idea... still
plain wishful thinking.

bounty

On 1 Feb 2005 07:07:11 -0800, "Bounty" wrote:

-Asteroid surface offers strong commercial potential for mining
precious minerals

I have a chunks of asteroids sitting on my monitor (and various other surfaces) as I type this. And
I have to say-- WHAT precious minerals? All of my asteroid chunks here are made up mostly of
olivine, iron, and nickel. Any "precious minerals" are found in such tiny trace amounts that vast
amounts of material would have to be melted and processed to gain small amounts of the "interesting"
trace elements. It would be highly difficult and highly expensive.