Space construction technique. Artwork of the tailored force fields space construction concept developed for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Robotic miners would break up asteroids into smaller chunks of rock (top two diagrams). An array of satellites would then use radio waves to assemble the rocks to form a cylindrical habitat (lower centre), which is then used to build a space station (bottom). This idea is being developed from the use of acoustic waves to assemble objects. It is thought that such space construction technology will take at least 30-50 years to develop. This study was funded in 2002 (Phase I) and 2004-6 (Phase II).