money is in short supply

To your first point, I think any robot capable of chewing up raw asteroidal regolith and converting it into usable elements could chew up raw soil lying around and do the same.

To your second point, while I agree that continuous sunlight is an outstanding advantage, I don't think the reason why we don't have robots building cities by themselves is because they can't be solar powered 24/7. (What about nuclear-powered robots, or robots we simply gas up at intervals?) I think the reason is because robotic capabilities are not sufficiently far along yet.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of edpell
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 7:05 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: money is in short supply

On a NEO there is building material for the taking. Not so here. On a NEO there is full time sunlight for energy. Not so here.