asteroid habitats

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Logsdon"
> I don't see a completely hollowed-out asteroid, with an interior
> similar to an O'Neill design; you're right about the tensile
strength issue
> in that case. Think instead of a series of large, interconnected
man-made
> caverns.

That's definately an option, and one they mentioned in "How to
Colonize an Asteroid."

> > There are substandard parts which don't meet specifications for
> > today's machinary. >

> I'm not really
> concerned about part of the rock being "substandard", if there's a
hundred
> feet or so of it between the floor of the chambers and the
outside.

I was thinking that the floor might be as thick as a km.

> > If you're referring to a Metallic class asteroid, I'd hate to be
> > tasked with the job of digging it out. Blowing up whole chunks of
> > metal in a controlled fashion is not going to be an easy job."
>
> Yeah, I thought about that after I included the M-class in the
potential
> asteroids I listed. Good point. Still, the stony and stony-iron
asteroids
> offer at least a few hundred potential sites among the NEOs.

The problem with stony asteroids is that they may not be
structurally sound. In fact, there's some speculation that many of
them are just loose piles of rubble held together by gravity.