Asteroid use

tntucker@... wrote:
--- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, aglobus@m... wrote:
> you might find the following paper relevant to this discussion:
>
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/papers/AsterAnts/paper.html
Al,
Great paper! Thank you.
How long to you estimate would be the average mission time?
I try to keep the mission time around a year or so in my estimates. Although I consider myself a good computer scientist, I'm not much of thephysicist so I would take my calculations with a large grain of salt.

Are you concerned that associated asteroids may damage the solar
sail? Perhaps near-by companions may damage the sail?
1 m diameter meteoroids probably don't have companions (at least I hopenot, we don't have any data)

I understand than mylar has a life of around 5 years due to
degradation from atomic oxygen. What is your preferred solar sail
material?
Probably aluminum, but I'm not really sure what is best.