Terraform cycler asteroids, part 4

Speculation alert


Part 3

This post will have to be short.  Time constraints.

Some calculations for the tubes- it should be able to fit on a currently available rocket in terms of mass. That's if you use titanium and you limit the thickness of it. There will have to be some tradeoffs in terms of strength and so forth, but it doesn't appear to be out of the question in terms of launch capabilities.

I figured less than 50k pounds for 1 inch thick titanium. That's assuming the calcs are correct.

That part of the logistics can work. Assembling all those pieces while in space is most likely to be quite tricky. Nothing this big has ever been constructed in space, so that aspect of the project would be unprecedented. Hopefully, the simple structure would not make this a "bridge too far".

A thought occurred to me yesterday, but I crossed it off.  Now it is back.  The idea was to use the backbone as part of a scaffold for a large McNeill type construction project.  You could build several of these tubes and connect them into a circle.  Then build on the outer rim.  Once the construction is complete, move on to another project.  Or just keep adding to this project until you build a long cylinder type which can be rotated 1 RPM for artificial gravity, and could house untold numbers of people.

Update:

You can start the project in LEO, then move towards the Moon.  Or more accurately, you could move to L1 (Lagrange point).  You could acquire lunar materials from there and continue building out your colony.  With a much shallower gravity well, it will be 1/15th as much effort to get out of the lunar gravity well as the Earth's.

You could also just build more backbones and spread out from there to the asteroids, or do both simultaneously.  The main idea is to avoid the Earth's deep gravity well and to build capabilities with the matter available at hand as you go along.

Update:

Next in Series, Part 5