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nexium
Guest
We build one vehicle per year about as big and complex as the space shuttle, but we assemble it at the ISS = international space station. The completed craft are "manned" by two female colonists 24/7. When a suitable asteroid passes closer than the moon, the craft lands on the asteroid. Typically about two days travel time. With present technology we can only catch the slower asteroids, and we need to launch hours before the asteroid passes between Earth and moon, which is why the colonists stand by 24/7. If they miss the landing, an altenate asteroid is selected. Perhaps two weeks travel time = 7 times the radiation exposure, perhaps worse, but they probably will live long enough to produce a child or two, preferably female. They use a sperm and embyo bank to produce the children as soon as it is decided the asteroid habitat is reasonably safe. The mass center is the safest place for the habitat in very small asteroids = underground. The habitats will be tiny.<br />About the time the first craft is ready, we start launching supply rockets into random solar orbits. This is a shotgun approach to deliver supplies to the asteroid habitats. We could have 15 healthy habitats by the 18 th year when the children born in the asteroid habitats will want their own habitat. About that time a suitable asteroid will drift by the habitat, and one adult and one teenager can easily tranfer to the new asteroid using a retrofitted supply rocket. Since they are far from Earth's gravity well, little energy is needed to change asteroids. We continue to launch a supply rocket about once per month until most of the habitats have a 100 year supply of food and other essentials. We could have 100 asteroid habitats in less than 200 years, even if we only send ten or twenty craft out from the ISS, and little technology advance. Assuming technology continues to advance, 1000 off-planet habitats are probable in 200 years, including a dozen moons and a few comets beyond Neptune.<br />If Earth is