[TML] Asteroid Mining (was Molding Ships)

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 10/1/07 11:36 PM, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> As I noted long before, "cheap construction will probably be
> "sandwich" panels of aluminum with a foamed glass (silica) core.
> 
> The hard part is the gas to "foam" the glass with. You don't want to
> use oxygen. Too much of a hazard if there's a fire. Though I supposed
> you could use some sort of "honeycomb" and vacuum. Air would
> eventually leak in, but even then it'd still be a decent insulation
> factor.

Actually, for the tiny quantity in a foamed glass, oxygen should be just
fine.



On 10/1/07 11:36 PM, Timothy Little wrote:

> The yoyo idea is nice, and would work.  The line strength analysis is
> too optimistic, but the conclusion is unchanged - you just need a
> somewhat stronger line.  Also, if you can double the length of line,
> you quarter the required masses at the ends and also reduce peak
> tension.

Found on research:  "Dr. Phil Chapman, Chief Scientist for Rotary rocket and
a retired US Astronaut".  No similar reference found for Timothy Little.  No
offense, but I'm going with Phil's figures on line strength.

> For every tonne of lanthanum, gold or silver mined, there will be on
> the order of a few hundred *million* tonnes of raw material processed.
> For comparison, 2500 tonnes of gold was mined on Earth last year.  I
> wouldn't expect that to decrease significantly in the future.  Where
> would you ship a trillion tonnes of materials that are abundant on
> every solid body in the system?
> 
> I'm sure some small portion of it will be used for something, but the
> vast bulk of it is likely to just remain in the belt unused.

Well I wouldn't ship them to a solid body, that's for sure!  This is SF!
What are we doing only mucking about in the dirt?

Glass & aluminum...  you can build a lot with those.