Kalpana one

here's an idea that might be a bit far out for you. why not bring the
materials closer to the construction site before you begin.

allow me to use your imagination for a minute.

on approximately zero - 2 years, a small probe is launched. it
carries very little reaction mass, mainly for precision landing and
stuff. prior to this neo have been studied and a medium size one that
gives all the indications of having the best results is targeted. the
main payload of this probe is a large solar sail, with several
smaller ones also included. once in space it deploys one or more or
the sails and heads for the rondevu (sp?) with the target. it then
stabilzes the tumble using the smaller sails, deployed in choisen
areas. then it deploys the main, and begins to bring the neo into an
orbit that will allow it to be captured by the earth. once there, the
smaller ones are once again used to change its orbit and speed to put
it in the desired orbit for the station. it arrives about zero - 6
months.

at the same time as it is changing orbits a second probe is sent to
it, this one carring equipment to mine and smelt ores from the neo.
This includes a very large mirror to collect the suns heat and direct
it to the proper equipment. it also includes radiators to help get
rid of the heat from the metals and materials afterwords. most likely
this would be in a centerfuge that could be attached to the asteroid.
it would also include some basic metal working machines such as
rollers to make plates.

once the station was under construction the asteriod could be used
for living quarters for the construction crew.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> At 07:43 PM 5/1/2006, you wrote:
> >we'll have access to large scale space resources, and what's
> >another few million tons?
>
> A lot of work to get it from there to here. Maybe not too much of
a
> concern for the 100th colony, but for the first one we need to
minimize the
> total mass of materials to be brought to the construction site. It
is
> probably the tallest pole in any orbital design.
>
> > Also, your design doubles the shielding accepted for the NASA
Summer
> >Studies; ~10tons per sq meter. I live near Denver, at about 1.6km
ASL,
> >where they settled on the shielding requirements (while I'm not at
1/2
> >atmospheric pressure, I am above half of the atmosphere's mass, so
> >about 5tons/m^2).
>
> Actually, the NASA summer studies called for 4.5 tons/m^2. But
remember
> that in Denver you are only exposed to cosmic radiation coming from
the
> sky. Everything coming from the other side of the Earth is blocked.
>
> That said, I think 4.5 - 5 tons per m^2 is probably reasonable,
subject to
> further study. It doesn't really change much about Kalpana One,
but it
> does cut that mass in half and make everything about two times
easier.