Asteroid use

The same processes I need to recycle air and water you will need as
well. I don't know where you are getting your facts but every analysis
of Marsian soil I have ever seen lacked uranium and thorium. In fact
it lacked many of the common metals as well outside of iron.

The marsian atmosphere is 1% the earth atmosphere. There won't be any
blimps in it until someone decides to do major terraforming of Mars.

No matter how thin the atmosphere, its not going to have 24/7 power on
the planet, and the structural requirements of solar panels on Mars is
going to make it thousands of times more expensive than space.

Antarctica has all the resource for constructing buildings and
biodomes on earth, so why is everything shipped in pre-built? Because
the industry required to go from mines to finished products requires
large amount of physical effort, energy and machinery.

>
> 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.

So does every asteroid of any interest.

> >
> > > > 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.

You have to spend money building structures for support, for tracking
the sun, on storage because of night day cycles. All I need is a solar
sail heating up a boiler to run a turbo generator.

If you are claiming that moving asteroids to Mars orbit will be cheap
enough to be economically viable, why are you worried about a hundred
tonne turbo generator?

> >
> 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 :-).

You seem to have no problems assuming spending grands amount of money
to make Mars comfortable, but don't believe that the same money will
be spent to make space structures comfortable? Why?

Bill