How to Turn an Asteroid into a Space Habitat (Using Self-Replicating Spider Robots)

A retired Technical Fellow from Rockwell Collins "released a 65-page paper that details an easy-to-understand, relatively inexpensive, and feasible plan to turn an asteroid into a space habitat," reports Universe Today (in an article republished at Science Alert):Dr. David W. Jensen breaks the discussion into three main categories - asteroid selection, habitat style selection, and mission strategy to get there (i.e., what robots to use)... He eventually settled on a torus as the ideal habitat type and then dives into calculations about the overall station mass, how to support the inner wall with massive columns, and how to allocate floor space. All important, but how exactly would we build such a massive behemoth? Self-replicating robots are Dr. Jensen's answer. The report's third section details a plan to utilize spider robots and a base station that can replicate themselves. He stresses the importance of only sending the most advanced technical components from Earth and using materials on the asteroid itself to build everything else, from rock grinders to solar panels... With admittedly "back-of-the-envelope" calculations, Dr. Jensen estimates that the program would cost only $4.1 billion. That is far less than the $93 billion NASA plans to spend on the Apollo program. And the result would be a space habitat that provides 1 billion square meters of land that didn't exist before. That's a total cost of $4.10 per square meter to build land - in space. Possibly even more impressive is the timeline - Dr. Jensen estimates that the entire construction project could be done in as little as 12 years. However, it will still take longer to fill the habitat with air and water and start regulating its temperature.

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