metal or ceramic foam

>Can anyone give a rough estimate of the mass of a lunar mass driver?
I presume
>that SSI must have conducted a great many studies, but I have found
it extremely
>difficult locating any mass estimates.
>
> Tony

This is from "New Routes to Manufacturing in Space, October 1980"
by Gerard K. O'Niell, Gerald Driggers, and Brian O'Leary which can
be ordered from SSI. It is a six page report.

Table 2 Scenarios for early stage of Lunar-materials processing
Case1. Manned Lunar manufacturing. Capable of manufacturing solar-
cell arrays and mass-drivers on the Moon. Could deliver raw materials
into space.
Case2. Unmanned lunar manufacturing. Products less versatile, growth
rate limited except for repetitive production of simple set of metal
pieces over a long time.
Case3. Manned mass driver with space manufacturing. Could produce
wide range of products in space plus mass-drivers on Moon. Could
bootstrap in two years to production rate of 100,000 ton/yr.

Characteristic Case 1 Case 2
Case 3
Lunar-landed payload,tons 41 15
107 + 89 in high earth orbit

Throughput(operating lunar-days only) 1800 ton/yr
Acceleration 10,000 m/sec
Total length 538 m
Caliber 17 cm
Winder mass 8.3 tons
Feeder mass 6.9 tons
SCR mass 10.8 tons
Kinetic power mass 4.7 tons
Electrical component total mass 53 tons
Total mass includeing structure 79 tons.

Mitchell James
mejames@...
http://www.InnerTransit.net (Email distribution for multilevel organizations)
http://www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)