Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius
Another option would be to snag a passing asteroid and nudge it into an appropriate orbit with mass drivers. As a plus, the mass of rock can serve as basic radiation shielding.
|
You'd need multiple asteroids to cover the phase differences (that is, if you want to travel more than once every 15 years). If you choose the right rock, or the right thrusters for your shuttles, you might be able to refuel from the rock. This would more than double the amount of payload the shuttles can carry, or more than halve their size.
Setting up small (~150) colonies on the cycler asteroids would be an intermediate step between colonizing the Martian moons and reaching out into the Main Belt. Sure, it's isolated most of the time, but every couple of years you make a pass by Earth or Mars. You have a ready market for all the food you've grown and stockpiled in the interval in the hordes of colonists who briefly fill your otherwise empty barracks (or hotels, for the well-heeled). You trade food, lodging, and reaction mass for a share of the high-tech goods that are passing through. It actually makes better economic sense than most asteroid colony schemes.