Terraform cycler asteroids, part 3

Speculation alert

Part 2

The last part left off with the asteroid in the center and being built with stuff from the asteroid itself.  This will be revised somewhat by having the "backbone", which is the tubes, placed in low earth orbit (LEO).  Then the backbone is taken out to an asteroid where it is built out with the materials at hand.

Since it isn't manned, a simple propulsion device could be used to tow the thing out there.  Maybe Hall thrusters would be all you needed.  However, if you want a manned mission, you may want more powerful and fast propulsion.  Just add a LFTR in LEO and use the electricity to power VASIMR engine(s).

The tubes for the backbone will have to be thin and put together in LEO.  That may be a trick to that.  You may need some astronauts up there on a space walk to put these together the way I envision.  That may be tricky.

I was thinking along the lines of having them with threads where a male side fit into the female side.  You simply put them together and twist them tight.  The tubes could be empty in the middle and have some strong material threaded through them.  That material could have strong tensile strength so as to be able to support the mass that will be spun on it.

The idea of the tube is to provide rigidity before the "tether" got spun up.  It would also provide for the tether some protection against micrometeorites.  It would keep the tether taut when it is un-spun to a stop, which may be necessary at times.  For example, you may want an un-spun mode in order to simplify docking and undocking.

You want to build at the ends of the tubes.  You would connect living space at the end so that when it is spun up, there will be artificial gravity there.

As noted in the previous post, if you had artificial gravity, you could use LFTR technology in the same way as on the ground.  If you need to un-spin the station, just let the molten salt drain into a safe configuration, then go the un-spun mode.

Update:

Next in Series, Part 4