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[Question] Asteroid

[rose]

Somewhere I read the explanation of the attachment of the colony to the asteroid - it may have been on the orbitalcolony site. I will check for it.

Also - about the robots: I assumed they were mining the asteroid for minerals...and that the payloads were being dropped down or returned to Earth somehow. Maybe that is where the $10 million in the Swaziland Band came from.

[camdman]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the asteroid was hollowed out, and the station is inside the asteroid. Something about the asteroid acts as insulation, so that the station doesn't experience the extreme heat/cold of outer space. At the same time as hollowing out the asteroid, the robots changed the course of the asteroid such that rather than colide with Earth, it would enter Earth's orbit.

[ahecht]

In order for a space elevator to work, you need a long strong tether (which was made by the robots from parts of the asteroid) and a large anchor to keep the tether taut.

Basically, the way orbital mechanics works is that the further you are from a planet, the slower you need to be going in order to be in orbit. If you are going too slow, you fall towards the planet, and if you are going too fast, you fall away from the planet. If you are within about 22,000 miles of earth, and you are going at a speed so that you stay over the same point on the earth at all times (your orbit is exactly one day), you will fall. If you are at exactly 22,241 miles away, you will stay in orbit over exactly the same spot (this is where TV satellites are, and is why you don't need to have satellite dishes that track the sky to get DirecTV). However, if you are beyond 22,241 miles, you are pulled away from earth, and the further you are, the greater the pull.

For a space elevator, the idea is that instead of building a tall tower, you build a flexible cable and attach it to a very large weight that is beyond 22,241 miles away. The larger the weight, the shorter the cable can be. Therefore, if you get a VERY large weight, say an asteroid, you can position your "anchor" only a few thousand miles beyond that.