The basic idea of turning an asteroid into a rotating space habitat has existed for a while. Despite that, it's always seemed relatively far off regarding technologies, so the concept hasn't received much attention over the years.
But, if you're retired and have an underlying interest in researching space habitats, developing a detailed plan for turning an asteroid into one seems like a great use of time.
And that is precisely what David W. Jensen, a retired Technical Fellow at Rockwell Collins, recently did. He released a 65-page paper that details an easy-to-understand, relatively inexpensive, and feasible plan to turn an asteroid into a space habitat.
Fully diving into the report's details would be far beyond the scope of this article, but we can hit the highlights. Dr. Jensen breaks the discussion into three main categories – asteroid selection, habitat style selection, and mission strategy to get there (i.e., what robots to use). Let's tackle each of them in turn.
Asteroid selection focused on which asteroid would make the best candidate to be transformed into a rotating space habitat. Considerations for this part include what the asteroid is made of, its proximity to Earth (and "delta-V," i.e., how much energy it takes to reach), and its overall size. READ MORE...
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