Bootstrapping - Step two

--- In ssi_list@... "Raven"
>
> > 2.) Build a pressurized assembly bay attached to the LEO station.
>
> > This is our first opportunity to test out vacuuum vapor
deposition.
> > I foresee an inflated spherical mylar balloon with prefabricated
> > airlocks and connecting tunnels already installed.
> Alternatively they may be attached as soon as the first half
millimeter of metal has been deposited. They may have a sort of
collar attached to them, and this will permit them the easier to be
welded together with the hull as the VVD proceeds.
> How do you imagine the VVD equipment? An elongated bulb with a
hole in one end, metal dust or fragments deposited inside, the bulb
spins to keep the unboiled metal inside as well as to be evenly
heated by the parabolic mirror? In order to be able to move it more
freely, we use both a primary and a secondary mirror, so that the
bulb needs not be in the focal point of the primary mirror?

Can you eleaborate on your vision? I ned some more detail to
visualize it more accurately.

>
> > The workers now work to perfect the technology by covering the
> > sphere with a uniform layer of metal.
> If it becomes fairly easy to extract pure metal, whether dense
ones like nickel-iron or light ones like alu, we may want to build
the colony hulls of pure metal. Perhaps building the pressure hull
turns out to be the easiest part of the task, and so, people in the
High Frontier may have more spacious surroundings than we imagine
today.
> As for the assembly bay (or dry dock) of the initial LEO
station, there is one easy source of metal, if we use ELVs.
>
> Jon L. Beck.

I considered ELV dismemeberment as a source of metal but was unsure
about the equipment needed to break them down into usuable chunks,
dust, etc. So I've opted to just bring the metal to orbit via
shuttle launch and have it in forms of bricks of solid or alloyed
material.

Can you elaborate on what machinery you envision being used for the
ELV breakdown? Would you put the launch and assembly of this
machinery at at earlier stage? How many launches would it take to
assemble? How long would it take to break down a ELV so that we
could use it for VVD of the assembly bay?

TangoMan