Abstract
Today there are numerous studies on asteroid mining. They elaborate on selecting the right objects, prospecting missions, potential asteroid redirection, and the mining process itself. For economic reasons, most studies focus on mining candidates in the 100-500m size-range. Also, suggestions regarding the design and implementation of space stations or even colonies inside the caverns of mined asteroids exist. Caverns provide the advantages of confined material in near-zero gravity during mining and later the hull will shield the inside from radiation. Existing studies focus on creating the necessary artificial gravity by rotating structures that are built inside the asteroid. Here, we assume the entire mined asteroid to rotate at a sufficient rate for artificial gravity and investigate its use for housing a habitat inside. In this study we present how to estimate the necessary spin rate assuming a cylindrical space station inside a mined asteroid and discuss the implications arising from substantial material stress given the required rotation rate. We estimate the required material strength using two relatively simple analytical models and apply them to fictitious, yet realistic rocky near-Earth asteroids.
Highlights
Sustaining human life on a station built inside a mined asteroid is a task which will require expertise in many fields
We established two simple analytical models for estimating whether a candidate for asteroid mining may be suitable for hosting a space station with artificial gravity
The novelty in our approach is to investigate whether the asteroidal hull— once set to rotation as a whole—can sustain the material loads resulting from a sufficiently high rotation rate
Summary
Sustaining human life on a station built inside a mined asteroid is a task which will require expertise in many fields. We assume that a rotation of the asteroid has to cause an artificial gravity of minimum 0.38 gE in order to sustain long term healthy conditions for humans on the station. Other studies somewhat vaguely mention augmenting the natural rotation with additional artificial rotation (Taylor et al, 2008) We elaborate on the latter and explore the feasibility and viability of creating artificial gravity for a habitat by putting the entire asteroid to rotation at a rate sufficient to generate the desired gravity.
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