metal or ceramic foam

> I have been thinking about how to capture and use asteroid material.
> The capability of spewing out a metal foam sheet or I beam a mile long
> could be of greater use than the same amount of material in compressed
> form: fewer viberational modes, greater cross-section, restricted
> localized damage. Each of the bubbles would be pressurized and would
> therefore have more strength then if made from a honeycomb type
> laminate. Since then I read one article where someone said the problem with many of the people advocating 0-G materials processing (both inside and outside NASA) is that they're experts is space travel, not materials processing. This makes them more attuned to a possible space solution than a possible Earth-based solution which might work equally well and cost much less. Since those early years, I've come to promote other things over 0-G materials processing. I know that even O'Neill (who certainly couldn't be accused of overlooking an advantage to being in space) was fairly dismissive of such then-popular notions as "perfectly round ball bearings" etc. Interesting, I wasn't even thinking about returning the material to earth. I was trying to figure out how zero gravity materials processing would work for a completely robotic operation for materials used in space. I spent several hours in discussion with a combustion expert who sells combustion systems to a variety of manufactures this weekend and in between stories about EPA stupidity we discussed different manufacturing and processing techniques currently in use. The problem with all of the technologies that we discussed was that while they work great for a LARGE earth based industrial plant they would be very difficult to implement in zero gravity. Very large springs would have to be used instead of gravity for force. I was looking for light weight processing systems since most of the parts would initially have to be lifted from earth. It may be many years before enough work is done in zero gravity to discover anything worth returning to earth.
Mitchell James
http://www.innertransit.org