Asteroid use

--- Robert Clements
> --- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, Marcel Williams
>
> wrote:
> >
> > MW: Hollowing out asteroids would be a waste or
> > resources. You could probably build dozens of
> space
> > islands with with the materials you hollowed out
> from
> > the asteroid in the first place.
>
> Of course: that's the point which starts making
> asteroid mining
> viable. The asteroid you originally begin mining
> becomes your factory
> floor; with a microG environment down the central
> spine & a revolving
> colony with useable G on the outer edges. It exports
> power from solar
> panels manufactured in situ; & builds the kind of
> large sail
> structures required for next stage space
> development.
>
> It's called leveraging your asset; & the only way
> that anything
> ressembling commercial spacemining will make sense.
>
> > And industrializing
> > the surfaces of the Moon and Mars make far more
> > economic sense than trying to build large space
> > islands at this time. Their time will come. But
> their
> > time is definitely not in the next 20 or 30 years,
> > IMO.
> >
> > Marcel F. Williams
> > 1/4/01
>
> As previously discussed, Mars is a joke as a
> potential space
> industrial site; but the Moon works as a potential
> link between
> different space utilities. Ultimately, though, the
> resources are in
> the asteroids; & the most portable ones - again:
> assuming you need to
> move them; which won't necessarily be true - ar the
> Earthgrazers
> resonant on Earth orbit.
>
> Robert
>
MW: Again, Mars orbit is an excellent place for the
processing of imported asteroids on a massive scale.
But your askin' for trouble if you allow every Joe
company in the world to import asteroids within the
Terra-Luna system. Would you trust Russian companies,
Chinese companies, Japanese companies, Brazilian
companies-- a company from Texas-- to safely import
hundreds of asteroids every year into the Terra-Luna
system. Sure it could be done but why take unnecessary
risk-- when you don't have to?