From: Party of Citizens (citizens@vcn.bc.ca)
Date: Sun May 25 2003 - 18:50:43 MDT
OK, scrap Pluto. Let's assemble all the rocks in the Asteroid Belt instead
by moving them together with Space Tugs. We create a new planet. As we do
so, we save this planet from accidental collision and we mine the
asteroids which will make every human on earth a multi-billionaire if we
can keep mining costs at terrestrial levels. The tailings are expelled
from Planet X by catapult and that gives us extra thrust to make Planet X
for a spin.
POC
On Sun, 25 May 2003, Technotranscendence wrote:
> On Sunday, May 25, 2003 4:33 AM Anders Sandberg asa@nada.kth.se wrote:
> >> NASA and USM are considering going out and moving smaller rocks in
> >> the asteroid belt which may collide with earth. What is the biggest
> rock
> >> you think could be moved around by modern rockets?
> >
> > It is all a matter of how much time you take. Even a fireworks rocket
> > can, if it fires long enough, impart enough delta-v on an object to
> > change is orbit completely. Also, if you have plenty of lead time you
> > can impart a small delta V into the object - the displacement will
> grow
> > at least linearly with time.
>
> Yep. Also, most of these rocks would be hit/pushed where it makes the
> biggest impact: at apohelion (for the ones with noncircular orbits,
> which means all of them, IIRC:).
>
> The big problem is not so much getting the right amount of energy to the
> right spot -- a nuke would do fine in most cases -- but being able to
> finely control the outcome. This requires more knowledge of asteroid
> composition, shape, and structure. For example, if the asteroid in
> question is more like a floating dirt pile, then it might harder to
> manuever since it might break up under manipulation with most of the
> fragments still heading where you don't want them -- even worse, the
> fragments might be distributed over a larger range of impact sites. It
> won't be like in that asteroid movie -- two chunks, but many thousands
> of chunks, many of which might survive atmospheric entry or sweep Near
> Earth Space of all spacecraft.
>
> To learn about asteroid composition and structure, perhaps the current
> best way is to do more flybys, orbits, and landings -- many more, since
> asteroids probably vary a lot. (Earthbound observations have certainly
> led to a range of classifications that indicate differences in
> composition and perhaps structure.) Such missions need not be high
> cost, especially if we can get the SpaceWatch crowd to join efforts with
> the would be asteroid mining people. They seem like natural allies, yet
> I don't see them even talking to each other. (Sadly, inside space
> activism circles, this sort of isolation between groups is typical.)
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dan
> http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
>
>
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