starship-design: Proposed maned missin to asteriod?

[KellySt@aol.com]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/sc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990726/sc/sp
ace_asteroid_5.html

Monday July 26 2:34 PM ET
Human Trip To Water-Rich Asteroid Possible By 2015
ITHACA, N.Y. (Reuters) - Human beings could go prospecting on a tiny,
water-rich asteroid and return samples to
Earth by 2015, much sooner than any possible human mission to Mars,
astronomers said Monday.

The water-rich asteroid -- a lumpy ball about 100 feet in diameter
called 1998 KY26 -- could serve as a sort of
cosmic filling station for space travelers, ``a space station waiting
for occupants,'' according to Steven Ostro of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/sc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990726/sc/sp
ace_asteroid_4.html

Monday July 26 12:25 AM ET
Asteroid Offers Oasis For Space Explorers- Report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A rapidly spinning asteroid that passed close to
Earth last
                     year offers an ``oasis for future space explorers''
because it is loaded with water,
astronomers said Friday.

An international team of astronomers in the Czech Republic, Hawaii,
Arizona and California pointed radar and
optical telescopes at Asteroid 1998 KY26 when it passed about 500,000
miles (800,000 km) from the Earth in June
1998.

Reporting in the journal Science, they said they found that the 100-foot
(30-meter) object spins -- rotating every 11
minutes -- but more importantly, they found it is loaded with ice.