Re: retrieving material from asteroids

royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

:On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:41:16 GMT, simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand
:Simberg) wrote:
:
:>On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 18:26:13 GMT, in a place far, far away,
:>royls@xxxxxxxxx made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
:>to indicate that:
:>
:>>Exhaust rocks that spent almost all their time in
:>>orbits in the outer solar system or off the ecliptic also would not
:>>strike me as much of a hazard.
:>
:>Of course not. They only become a hazard when they *do* strike you.
:
:And the chances of that are...?

Higher than you'd like. Unless you get them to escape velocity for
the system, at some point their orbit is likely to bring them back to
where you fired them from (which is potentially right in the middle of
one of your space transit lanes).

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden
.

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