Mass driver tugs can be designed to move Apollo and Amor asteroids at opportunities of low velocity increment to the vicinity of the earth. The cost of transferring asteroids through a velocity interval of 3 km/sec by mass driver is about 16 cents per kilogram amortized over 10 years, about ten times less than that required to retrieve lunar resources during the early phases of a program of space manufacturing. About 22 per cent of a 200-meter diameter asteroid could be transferred to high earth orbit by an automated 100 megawatt solar-powered mass driver in a period of five years for a cost of approximately $1 billion. Estimates of the total investment of a space manufacturing program could be reduced twofold by using asteroidal instead of lunar resources; such a program could begin several years sooner with minimal concurrent development if asteroidal search programs and mass driver development are immediately accelerated.
Mass driver retrievals of earth-approaching asteroids
Conference on Space Manufacturing Facilities ; 1977 ; Princeton, NJ, US
1977-05-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
Mass driver retrievals of earth-approaching asteroids
AIAA | 1977
|Optimal Deflection of Earth-Approaching Asteroids
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999
|Radar Investigation of Earth-Approaching Asteroids
NTRS | 1993
|Earth-Approaching Asteroids as Targets for Exploration
NTRS | 1978
|Near-Optimal Deflection of Earth-Approaching Asteroids
AIAA | 2001
|