Asteroids as Islands, or More Ghost Towns

[chris_gerrib]

While writing yesterday's post about Amelia Earhart, I ended up doing a bit of research on Pacific islands. Being a space geek, this led me to think about space - specifically asteroid colonization. Basically, the economics of asteroid colonies could be similar to Pacific islands

Comments

[jordan179]

Your analysis of it misses three major points.

(1) Volatiles The asteroids in the Main Belt, especially as you move outward, have ice. This gives you hydrogen for fusion fuel, oxygen to breathe, and water to drink.

(2) Concealment Asteroids, even small ones, are opaque and hence can be conceal one's activities from hostile sensors. This is important because there is little concealment in space.

(3) Fortification Asteroids are heat sinks and direct obstacles to energy weapons fire: this is important because one can hit a stationary facility in open space at very long ranges with lightspeed weapons.

And in any case, a metal-rich asteroid is worth exploiting in any Main Belt or Greek/Trojan orbit, assuming the existence of an extensive space infrastructure and hence off-Earth demand.

The actual point made by the original article was that the Asteroid Belt didn't form a natural political unit owing to astrography; in particular the widely-diverging orbits of individual asteroids. No one capital, even Ceres, would have easy access to all the other asteroids: in many cases, the asteroids would be more accessible from Callisto or Mars. Hence the Asteroid Belt would tend to be dominated by whoever held Mars or the Galilean satellites.

[baron_waste]

That explains the “Emperor of the Asteroids” text fragment I specifically recall. I concede your better recollection - and I'm amazed that you do!