RE: starship-design: Private Asteroid Mining

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

On Monday, September 15, 1997 2:37 PM, Ken Wharton 
[SMTP:wharton@physics.ucla.edu] wrote:
>
> Okay - sounds like turning an asteroid into useful material might not be
> so
> tough.  Next question: how expensive is it to send it to Earth orbit?
> I suppose there might be a few asteroids that come so close that it would
> only take the slightest nudge to put them in orbit around the Earth (or
> around the moon... maybe that would be safer if you miscaclulated?)
> But still, the average earth-orbit-crossing asteroid would probably take
> an awful lot of energy to do this.  I'm sure not as much as it would take
> to launch it into orbit, but is the price at all comparable?  Does anyone
> have a dollars/kilogram estimate for A) putting Earth materials into
> orbit
> twenty years from now and B) pulling asteroid materials into orbit twenty
> years from now.  Enquiring minds want to know...
>
> Ken

Well,

Maybe this is the ideal use for sails. All we are looking for is a 
relatively modest transfer orbit into SOLAR orbit at one of the LaGrangian 
points. That would be a better choice for industrial operations. Bear in 
mind that, speed isn't important for this application - CHEAP is.

A mining vessel equipped to drill several anchor shafts to attach the sail 
to, one neat, compact little sail all folded up, and you are in business.

Lee