money is in short supply

On Feb 25, 2011, at 7:57 PM, Matt Gallimore wrote:

> Forgive me for sounding too conventional, but how about this for
> asteroid
> mining:
> 1. Launch a rocket derived from shuttle external tank.
>
Why do you think this is the best way to go?

> 2. Assume it (with side mounted boosters) could send 25-30 ton of
> equipment to
> an asteroid.
>
I've got a better idea. Figure out how much it could lift to an
asteroid orbit. Do the numbers.

> 3. Mine a chondrite, which is high in water.
> 4. Bake mined material to remove volatiles.
> 5. Split volatiles between water and other stuff.
> 6. Split the water for H and O to go to the repective tanks in the
> rock. The
> other volatiles go to the nitrogen tank (mounted above the other two
> in a
> shuttle external tank design)
> 7. The remaining solids might be desiccated rock and powder which
> can be put
> into Santa Claus sized bags alongside the ship.
>
> Over the course of a few years, both liquid fuel tanks could be
> filled and many,
> many tons of asteroid solids bagged.
> A followup ship could take the rock bits and remove some iron and
> other metal to
> cast structural members. These standard parts could for the
> framework of a
> cylinder built around the first ship (now fueled). As the second
> ship gets
> restocked with volatiles, the scaffolding is built for slag.
>
> Pack the slag in the framework and fuse together.
>
> If you wanted a 20 meter ring for radiation shielding for transport,
> put a
> Bigelow inflatable inside and there you go.
>
> Solar sails can be used for bits, but the one shuttle derived
> vehicle could
> provide the plenty of manuevering thrust - alternatively lots of
> water for
> radiation sheilding.
>
> From: Frank
> To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: brooksn
> Sent: Fri, February 25, 2011 7:02:11 AM
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: money is in short supply
>
> On 24.02.2011 21:51, brooksn wrote:
> >
> > Yeah even if that's the case it seems a little light. With those 5
> > tons you'll have to have the ability to land on an asteroid, analyze
> > the asteroids make up.
> >
> The mothership does not land on the asteroid, the daughter units do.
> The mothership provides only long distance transportation and
> recharging
> possibility to the daughters, evtl. also melting services
> since it could carry a laser to melt or cut out ice from the asteroid.
>
> The first missions would only extract materials and bring them back to
> the ISS or another deflatable laboratory in LEO. There the processing
> and separating processes and equipment have to be developed and
> tested.
> If they are developed the next mission goes back to the locations
> where
> the best suited ores have been found.
>
> At this near asteroid construction site the daughters mine the
> asteroid
> and unload the materials to the construction sites/molds.
> One single operation of one miner might need only two or three hours
> to
> scoop up the material and deliver it to the construction/separation
> site, which is freely floating in space. Than the next operation could
> start. This is the advantage of low gravity asteroid operations for
> habitat construction against gravity well construction. You can use
> relatively small equipment with efficient but weak propulsion and
> carry
> (Earth mass) tons of materials,
> which you couldn't even move on Earth.
>
> And you have more than one miner per mothership and can use more than
> one mothership to speed up the
> operation if needed.
>

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here.

Al Globus
http://alglobus.net

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.