/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3964601
First off, you're not strapping fifty rockets the size of a Saturn V and then pushing it directly toward Earth, you're using small nudges and taking advantage of different gravitational fields to slip into an eccentric Earth orbit which can then be normalized. The main propulsion of the asteroid likely wouldn't be rockets, but mass drivers which would fire asteroid rock away at extremely high speed using electricity and magnetism.
As for the 'space elevator that weighs a few million tons,' it's more likely to be hundreds of millions of tonnes, and you act like a few million tons is nothing.


1 short ton = 2000 pounds
http://www.spacenews.com/venture_space/110405-spacex-launch-falcon-heavy.html
>Musk said the rocket should lower the launch cost of cargo to about $1,000 per pound, about one-tenth the cost per pound on NASA shuttle launches.
3 500 000 short tons = 7 000 000 000 pounds
7 000 000 000 x 1000 = 7.0 × 1012 dollars.

>>3922506
No gravity wells are superior for construction of space habitats and massive, high-powered nuclear saltwater rockets.

>>3787008
>Robot development ~200 million
>SpaceX Falcon rockets ~1 billion
>Miniaturization of plasma gasification unit and modification for space operations ~250 million
>miniaturization of LFTR for initial power source for robots and PGU ~400 million
>other areas of research, paying people's salaries and so on another 3 billion

It's not out of the question, and I vastly inflated the last figure.

>>3568903
Launching all those hamboigahs into GEO is incredibly cost-prohibitive. My suggestion is to further research into the refinement of asteroid materials by robots for the replication of solar panels in space. Ship up robots, ship up a couple of small factories with ore-vaporizing units (Plasma gasification unit) and then pump out low-quality solar panels. A lot of them. I wouldn't think such an endeavor would cost over 10 billion using the new rockets SpaceX propose.

>>3299078
Everyone jelly.

Hopefully, SpaceX picks up the slack.

>>3274374
I have my own personal account which is not connected to the funds required for the upkeep of SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

Good riddance. Space Shuttle ruined the space program.

>>2975645