The opposite of unreal estate? Instead of taking a chunk of landmass off the surface of the earth to space, we take a chunk of spacemass and land it back on Earth We can already move them into planetary orbits. I wonder if a safe, controlled landing would be possible? Maybe using some variant of a spindizzy in the core of a small rock.
Find your target rock in the main belt, bring it to Earth, land it in some water basin near your country's EEZ, put a flag on it (Either an existing nation, or the Democratic People's Republic of Atlantis), along with some settlements, maybe some mines and a few troops to keep everyone else away. The benefits to mining the thing are obvious, along with having big ocean with a lot of resources, tourism and the chance to do research on establishing ecosystems. Do a slow enough landing, and there won't be any adverse effects on nearby coastlines.... it's not a sudden shock, but a gradual displacement over the course of a week or two.
Landing a 3km diameter rock in the ocean will make little to no difference to sea-levels, when compared with the massive volume of the ocean. Certain large countries with a view to expanding aquatic territorial claims might even see this as a way to spread their influence.
It makes other things possible too.
Imagine damming the Mediterranean for example? Think of the massive potential energy the flow of tides could create between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Using space-rock makes this a thousand times simpler. You can just go 'drop'. And suddenly, you've got the largest lake - with only a turbine-filled channel remaining supplying masses of electricity into Africa or Europe. You'd need a ship-lift or some form of lock-gate to enable commerce- but you can build these systems before landing.
Of course, cocking it up and making a splash would be.... unpleasant. But there doesn't seem to be a technical reason why it'd be impossible.
Maybe I should lay off the cough syrup?
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Find your target rock in the main belt, bring it to Earth, land it in some water basin near your country's EEZ, put a flag on it (Either an existing nation, or the Democratic People's Republic of Atlantis), along with some settlements, maybe some mines and a few troops to keep everyone else away. The benefits to mining the thing are obvious, along with having big ocean with a lot of resources, tourism and the chance to do research on establishing ecosystems. Do a slow enough landing, and there won't be any adverse effects on nearby coastlines.... it's not a sudden shock, but a gradual displacement over the course of a week or two.
Landing a 3km diameter rock in the ocean will make little to no difference to sea-levels, when compared with the massive volume of the ocean. Certain large countries with a view to expanding aquatic territorial claims might even see this as a way to spread their influence.
It makes other things possible too.
Imagine damming the Mediterranean for example? Think of the massive potential energy the flow of tides could create between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Using space-rock makes this a thousand times simpler. You can just go 'drop'. And suddenly, you've got the largest lake - with only a turbine-filled channel remaining supplying masses of electricity into Africa or Europe. You'd need a ship-lift or some form of lock-gate to enable commerce- but you can build these systems before landing.
Of course, cocking it up and making a splash would be.... unpleasant. But there doesn't seem to be a technical reason why it'd be impossible.
Maybe I should lay off the cough syrup?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?