Kalpana One design (was Rotating space colonies)

Well I lean 80:20 to asteroid/LEO, but can be convinced otherwise.

I would hope people would understand the impossibility of the first 1 to 2 meter aerobrake capture using Earth's atmosphere as not being akin to an Armageddon scenario. But people oppose nuclear fueled space probes and hallucinate death panels so you never can tell when the mob gets all worked up. We currently are being rained on with one 4 meter rock a year, and far more smaller rocks cruise through LEO unknown to us, not destroying ISS or too many other satellites as they do. If we have a controlled use of a meteor I hope we can remove any fears on the merits.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/1991ba.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_BA
Here's a nice one behind door number 2 for your shopping pleasure. It's a 6 meter beauty weighing in it a modest 374 tons, and she's already passed within 160,000 km of Earth before, half the distance to the moon. :)

Brooks

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Pratt wrote: