By-Pass the Moon?

Hi Mike,

Yes, LOX would be a great asset. Also there might be
water-ice i the always dark craters in the lunar polar
regions.

But even if there is no water, From the regolith, we
get 4 other valuable items, 1) Aluminum, 2) Titanium,
3) Iron and 4) Slag. If the processing is done in
space, these bi-products could be used to build
habitats and many other things, Plus it would make
the lunar operation (strip mining and electromagnetic
bucket launch) so simple that it could probably be run
remotely from orbit (with just an occasional
maintenance visit). It could also be done on the
lunar surface but that would lead to the requires
mining outposts. Another advantage of the first
(Unmanned) option is that this lunar regolith may be
used at the earth-sun L-1 Lagrange orbit, to block out
some of the sunlight reaching earth, thus reducing
global warming.

I personally, would like to see both a tiny outpost on
the moon to set up this automated mining operation,
and a expedition to a nearby asteroid. with continued
returns periodically to both.

Dave Handwerk

--- "Combs, Mike" wrote: