Using Asteroids To Build Space Colonies

Hi,saw this in the Calgary Herald,Nov/8/05,p.A-14,Space-
craft To Scoop Up Asteroid Dust.The article by Guy Gug-
liotta of the Washington Post says the Japanese probe
will take samples Nov/12&25 and will return to Earth in
June/07 and parachute the samples down to Australia.The
probe is called Hayabusa and will take samples from the
Asteroid Itokawa.Wow,pretty exciting!!!I suppose in the
near future,there will be dozens of probes
looking for valuable metals and minerals from the many
asteroids that pass close to the Earth.
Saw this in the Calgary Herald Nov/9/05,Flying Tow-truck
May Save The Earth,Spaceship could head off asteroids,
by Tom Spears of CanWest News Service.NASA,s Edward Lu
and Stanley Love have proposed an unmanned Spacecraft
that will use gravitational force to slowly change the
path of an oncoming asteroid so that it will not strike
our little planet Earth.They are suggesting a test run
in 2029 on an asteroid scheduled to pass close to the
Earth to see if it can substantially alter the course of
the asteroid.
Maybe if the Japanese probes can find the metal-rich
asteroids,then Nasa's Tow-truck could tow them into
Lunar orbit and then we can extract the metals and
minerals to start building large scale Habitats.I
wonder if Mark Prado of www.permanent.com,would approve
of this stategy ?
Gotta go,take care,bye for now.
Cordially,John Hadden,jfhadden@...