>>The sensible versions I've read use solar mirrors to melt asteroid metals
>>in situ, then railgun standardised ingots to a relay station at one of the
>>earth-moon libration points, for redirection to earth (after, perhaps,
>>reshaping into lifting bodies). Still pretty scary.
>Where have you read this (besides my proposal)?
Hmm, I wonder. Since I used it in THE WHITE ABACUS, written before I
joined this list or read any of Forrest's intriguing papers, I guess it
must have been in Bob Forward or Jerry Pournelle or one of their epigones.
Damien Broderick