Majestic_Pitch_1803

Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd9lw4n wrote

Protection from space debris, mining as a key point but not the whole point.

Sitting inside the asteroid would surely provide protection from radiation.

Ability to have multiple smaller payloads more easily (due to less weight) meet this required speed to board the asteroid and coalesce to form a much more complex operation once on the asteroid. Meaning even achieving that speed at all is made far easier.

Manufacturing propellant for the departure from the asteroid at the end of the mission.

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd8t3ku wrote

For sure we are a ways off but perhaps you send smaller rovers that manufacturer these instruments once on board the asteroid, perhaps just deploying enough raw materials to give them a start.

Voyager for example just ran out of gas. As is expected. This is an issue you’d need to solve in such types of travel. Asteroids seem like a possible solution

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd8k6n4 wrote

No, I’m not suggesting you need to keep accelerating. The speed aspect is only one reason you might want to save on the fuel you take, how do you plan on slowing down? If you could somehow mine the asteroid for fuel, this may be a possible solution.

You could also send smaller payloads that all reach the ship more easily and coalesce to fully establish sensory instruments and research stations. Rather than trying to get one heavy ship to a high speed and then somehow slowing it down.

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd62vkq wrote

A quick answer would be protection from space debris. More land with which to make the space craft more reinforced and with which to potentially build further technological instruments, or even live on if that was a possibility.

Even so. It could provide avenues for slowing down the payload once reaching the destination. If you could mine for fuel, that’s a win.

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd5q143 wrote

I wouldn’t worry so much about turning the asteroid so much as I would be worried about getting off when i’m where I want to be. But at least in my scenario you could get off how you got on and you don’t need to take enough fuel with you to get off, you get it when you’re on the asteroid

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd5nutv wrote

Indeed, though this would be easier since you could send multiple smaller payloads that coalesce on the object. Not only this, if you somehow managed to mine and create small scale industrial works, you could maybe even make the fuel to bloody get off asteroid.

If you decided to send humans they could live inside the asteroid as a fortress from the elements, as a place from which to further develop the asteroid as a spacecraft itself. Creating many of the sensory instruments and propulsion technology or fuel, spaces for living aka creating agriculture and processing essential gasses.

If you ask why would you send humans on such a journey? Why would you send them on a voyager 1 like journey? You wouldn’t, you’d send them to a desired location, like near a habitable planet. Only it seems easier to me to do it this way than to try and send a single manned ship.

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd5maih wrote

Making the initial payload lighter so that you would be able to send a number of rovers to develop a more sophisticated operation, once actually on the object, rather than trying to land the entire operation there, all in one go. Which would require heavier payloads with = harder to get to such speeds.

Getting off the asteroid is just as much an issue as slowing down an independent spacecraft that has reached similar speeds and makes an interstellar journey. How do we slow down? Wouldn’t we need fuel and propulsion just as we got up to the same speed so to board the asteroid initially, or to slow down an independent spacecraft.

At least on an asteroid you can mine for the fuel and create a rocket.

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd5lch7 wrote

You would likely need to send multiple spacecraft at the same time to the object. Couldn’t nuclear energy get us a long way once we’re actually on the object? This would be a notch in favour of making a colony that could become self sustaining if properly prepared

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Majestic_Pitch_1803 t1_jd5kzb4 wrote

I mean it could allow you to send multiple smaller payloads to the asteroid and allow it to act as a central ship. You can carry a smaller payload either way if you could figure out how to mine and manufacture on such a body. You wouldn’t need the object to be as heavy with shielding materials etc. If the project was sophisticated to carry humans you could develop essentially a colony and sensory instruments once actually on the asteroid. You could mine for elements and there are many.

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