Asteroid use

--- bill t wrote:
> >
> > MW: Your process is already initially more
> expensive
> > than my process because have to take along humans
> > along (humans are expensive to house and to feed
> in
> > interplanetary space) with your heavy processing
> unit.
> > And you still don't produce any finished products
> like
> > satellites or photovoltaics, you just send
> processed
> > raw material that you could have sent back in one
> lump
> > by automated sail in the first place.
> > >
> Bill: Why do you think it will be less expensive to
house
> and feed people on
> Mars?

MW: Because you don't have to import your air and
water by rocket from an asteroid or another planet.
Oxygen can easily be extracted from the carbon dioxide
in the marsian atmosphere and cheap frozen water can
easily be imported by hydrogen blimps from the polar
ice caps of Mars. Ice is thought to extend at least
one kilometer beneath the northern polar caps-- so
there's plenty of it.
Thanks to its thin atmosphere, solar energy on the
surface of Mars is about as intense as it is on Earth.
And the marsian soil appears to be rich in uranium and
thorium which would be needed to power nuclear
reactors.
Mars has all of the resources for constructing
buildings and biodomes for its marsian inhabitants and
supply them with food and water.
>
>Bill: I at no time said what the finished product
was. I
> said that you will
> have the processing equipment with you on the ship.
> What gets shipped
> back could anything from pelletized ore to solar
> power satellites, to
> complete copies of the factory.
>
> You are the one that is assuming you can't do
> everything in-situ.
>
> > > Bill: I want to know why you believe the solar
> > energy in
> > > mars orbit is
> > > extrinsically cheaper than a similar space
> satellite
> > > be tugged along
> > > with a ship?
> >
> > MW: For the simple reason that I don't have to
> spend
> > money transporting a large solar power plant
> around
> > the solar system everytime I want to process an
> > asteroid.
> > >
> Where do you plan to get the first one?
>
> > > Bill: Your employee will be living in a tin can
> on a
> > > planet, mine will be
> > > living in a tin can in space? What is the
> > > difference.
> >
> > MW: My employees would be working in front of
> > computers operating the orbital asteroid
> processing
> > units. But on their lunch breaks, or after work,
> they
> > would walk down into one of the local biodomes to
> > relax under the marsian sunshine. Biodomes would
> be
> > transparent 100 meter to 200 meter UV shielding
> > pressurived plastic domes insulated from cosmic
> > radiation by a few meters of water sandwiched
> between
> > the outside of an inner dome and the inside of an
> > outer dome. Although I expect biodomes as large as
> 1
> > to 2 kilometers in diameter could be built in the
> 2030s
> > on Mars. Inside of these domes, of course, would
> be
> > flowers, grass, trees, swimming pools, and a lot
> of
> > happy folks sunbathing under natural sunshine.
>
> But none of these things could be built as part of
> the ship moving
> from one asteroid to another. The ships I discussed
> are modular by
> design. You want a biodome, you build it as part of
> the infrastructure
> upgrades at the next asteroid. You want parks, with
> flowers and tree,
> you build that. You want natural sunshine, you have
> a mirror infront
> of a window tracking the sun.
>
MW: So now you want to move parks too on your grand
tour of the asteroids. That roving ship of yours is
going to weigh about a million tonnes after you finish
with it :-).

>Bill: If your argument is that Mars can be Paradise
> Regained, so can any
> asteroid.

MW: Because of its low gravity, Mars will never be
paradise. But it would be an excellent place for
people to work for the processing of asteroids in Mars
orbit.

Marcel F. Williams
1/6/01