New here, asteroids prefered

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Joe Strout wrote:
>
> crookedmancreations wrote:
>
> > To date in our extraterrestrial
> > experience it's the ABSENCE of gravity that has produced commercial
> > applications.
>
> That's committing two logical errors:
>
> 1. There are no commercial applications in space that care about gravity
> at all (satellites would work just fine in gravity; it's their position
> that matters, not the micro-G). All that hype about perfect crystals,
> pharmaceuticals, etc. has not led to any actual commercialization as far
> as I'm aware.
>
> 2. Even if there were such applications, you'd be confusing cause and
> effect. Our "extraterrestrial" capability is limited to LEO, and we
> lack artificial gravity capability (as noted above). So if we did have
> any commercial applications, they would by necessity be zero-G ones.

Actually you're making errors in fact and logic, first commercial companies are paying for research on ISS in zero g (an application), second space tourism includes not just great views and rocket trips but the zero g environment, third this site lists 'spinoff' commercial benefit from the space program some coming directly from zero g work. http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

On your second point you are the actually confusing cause and effect, we didn't pick research on ISS as a random location and then can claim what's found is linked to zero g, we purposely did research in zero g and so the applications come from the zero g research.

> > Some of the fields of study yielding, or about to yield,
> > results with a high probability of commercial applications that require
> > an environment of microgravity include:
> > ...
>
> [A bunch of hypothetical stuff that has never been proven and, in my
> opinion, have a low probability rather than a high one.]

See above link, and maybe a basis, reasoning and/or evidence for your claims of hypothetical, never proven, and low probability statements.

> > I can see a thriving habitat/Earth economy easily enough, but, unless we
> > DO herd, harvest and utilize the asteroidal resources available to us I
> > don't see there being sufficient materials to effect any kind of
> > 'economy' on the moon- what do you have to sell, or what potential can
> > you offer to prospective manufacturers to set up shop there?
>
> Are you kidding? Metals, volatiles (including H2 and O2), bulk mass for
> radiation shielding... let's not kid ourselves, space is mostly vast
> stretches of emptiness, full of plenty of solar energy (at least in the
> inner solar system) but not much else. Sources of materials are
> valuable, and hauling them up from Earth is dangerously close to
> impractical.

Again everything you just listed is in the asteroids except with even more diversity of material and even more solar energy (since a 28 day cycle leaves a lot of dark time on the moon). Also hauling materials from the moon, in reference to the previous delta V discussion, is far more expensive then the moon.

> > Then
> > there's the factor of getting those products to their markets: 1/6 g,
> > while miniscule in comparison to Earths, will still require significant
> > use of fuel (or a significant outlay for a linear accelerator, skyhook,
> > etc.)- much more of an expense than would be incurred by shipping from a
> > zero g habitat.
>
> If you could wave a magic wand and have a zero G habitat appear (poof!),
> yes. But in that case we should wave the same wand and have the linear
> accelerator appear on the Moon.
>
> Barring such a magic wand, you have to compare the expense and
> difficulty of building the mass launcher on the Moon, to building a
> space habitat. The latter is probably about 100 times harder. (Indeed,
> the serious folks who have studied this -- e.g., O'Neill -- quickly
> concluded that you need the former to build the latter.)

Um, who needs a habitat to process a 10 meter asteroid? With one or two launches ISS could have the facilities to do it. After finding a candidate and aerobraking him into orbit, work can begin.

But the moon is further out without any current infrastructure, unlike ISS, and you'd have to build the mass launcher. A very energetically costly facility that is not needed for the ISS counter part, most mass launchers call for huge energy requirements in order to accelerate mass to escape velocity.

> > How do you live
> > there- volatiles and water (no one knows how much ice is at the poles or
> > if it will prove accessible, and any volatiles delivered via cometary or
> > asteroidal strikes will necessarily be widely scattered by impact) will
> > need to be imported though as you say there are plenty of oxides.
>
> We know as much about lunar water as we do about asteroidal water. And
> we know there's a lot of it: both concentrated at the poles, and spread
> thinly but uniformly over the surface.

Probably alot of water, not alot of other volatiles though N,C,S,P and even limited current understanding is the asteroids have alot more of everything. And again in a much higher gravity well and further away.

Brooks