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Responses on Asteriod Problem



My thanks to messieurs McIsaac, Whatcott and Kowalski for responding to
my thought problem. The mass ejector and fusion rocket [or perhaps an
ion propulsion mechanism] ideas are appealing in that they are capable
of precisely deflecting the asteriod into a benign orbit. My grandson
and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that large fusion bombs would
not be precise enough because of how their energy is released. The
benign orbit part of the problem is important because the objective is
not to destroy the asteriod but to put it into close proximity for the
purpose of mining [a la John S. Lewis]. This helps the economics
enormously.

Getting back to the flywheel part of our question, do any of you have
any thoughts on the practicality of building such a device as I
described? Do the numbers [mass, energy, diameter, spin speed] look
right? And what would be the best material to deal with the stress
forces? Do you think the solar energy part of the solution seems
reasonable and within today's technology?

Thank you and best regards


Bill Prescott