By-Pass the Moon?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Michael Persohn-Costa
wrote:
>
> Not to mention that we yet have no real experience with refining
> ores in free fall.

I don't see why we would despin an asteroid and then struggle to
overcome the challenges of zero-g.

> There have been many discussions over the years over how to do
> this, but it's still speculation until somebody demonstrates to
> make Iron out of ore in weightlessness.

That may be an issue for other plans, but I'm talking about mining as
what's all-AI, not smelting and manufacturing. I want to bring
asteroids or significant chunks of them to near-earth space, and do
the sophisticated processing where lightspeed lag is manageable and
sending up new hardware is possible.

> Is it easier to do the first experiments like this in an autonomous
> facility, or would it be easier if humans are there to tweak those
> machines to get them to work?

It would be easier in an all-machine facility that has everything you
imagine you could want and a good budget left for sending up what you
want but couldn't imagine for as long as , than in a facility with
the same budget all spent on supplies and redundant failsafes for the
people and only enough equipment budget left to send along a swiss
army knife and an aluminum mallet. Yes I exaggerate, but unless it's
the budget of a top-tier military program it's going to be expensive
enough to put people beyond LEO for long periods that every other
aspect will be squeezed.

Really, is there that much you can do on-site that you can't do with
telepresence?

Also, with automated missions you have a big portion of your cost
upfrontin R&D and then you can send more missions relatively cheaply,
whereas with sending humans you've burned all your money on
supporting the humans and attempt N will cost almost as much as
attempt 1.