[TML] Asteroid Mining (was Molding Ships)

[Richard Aiken]

On 10/4/07, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:

[bringing us back to the inconvenient real world . . .]

> In short, a passive system applied to an irregular body as described
> will most likely lead to a more irregular tumbling rotation in the
> later stages, which may tangle the line - and in some cases may
> actually return angular momentum to the asteroid, speeding it up
> again.

Hmmm.

Maybe you could use this effect to your advantage, by doing the
de-spin manuever in stages?

You anchor a cable reel - loaded with a miles-long and
seriously-over-engineered cable - to a certain point on your
chaotically-tumbling asteroid.  The free end of your cable is already
"weighted" with a multi-ton weight.  You back off and unlock the reel,
then fire a compressed-gas rocket to start the line unreeling.

After a while, the cable finishes paying out.  Meanwhile. the tumble
of the asteroid has started to wrap it.  You let it.  You even let it
do the "wrap the other way" effect of a real yo-yo.  On purpose.

Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat.

After several iterations, wouldn't the variations begin to cancel each
other out?  Eventually, you end up with spin in only one axis.  If the
cable snarls itself before this, you blow that weight and start fresh
with a new reel/weight set.  You could even install such back-up sets
on the same initial visit.

Once you've achieved single-axis spin (or something sufficiently close
to it), then you can use one of the back-up reels for the original
de-spin manuever.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein