About that moonstalk

I've been thinking about this for most of the day.

For the price of 12 missions to capture asteroids ( 12 times 2.6 billion dollars each ), there would be enough mass for an anchor that would enable a moonstalk to be constructed from a Lagrange point---preferably L1.

It would also require an anchor on the lunar surface, and this would need to be constructed so as to be sturdy enough.  Come to think of it, the asteroids will need to be bound together with a material that is strong enough to hold it together too.  There may be a tendency for it to want to come apart.

The total cost for such a mission would be well below the price mentioned ($88 billion) to set up a lunar fueling station.  You could still set up the fueling station, and much more if you had access to the lunar surface.  This moonstalk could achieve that.

Once the moonstalk is in place, you can then start to mine it for its water content, amongst other things.  Those things that are taken out as valuable enough for other uses can be replaced by lunar materials that aren't so valuable.  Over time, the entire valuable content of the asteroid could be exchanged for less valuable materials from the Moon without losing its original anchor mass.

A moonstalk could enable propellant free transits to the lunar surface.  This would save valuable resources, like water, for life support and shielding from radiation.  You could build additional structures with the lunar materials that may include materials that the asteroids don't have.  It may be advantageous to build a sophisticated complex at this location in order to do many things.  Perhaps you could construct space ships that could shelter space travelers for years.  Such structures could be too large to launch from the Earth's surface.

Moonstalks could be the way to open up space, and lead to settlement.