Gaia Selene

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "flymuffins"
wrote:

> > On a NEO, which is on a independent orbit from that on Earth, the
> > material can be anywhere from a few days away from the refinery to a
> > few years<

> Why would NEO mined materials be refined back at Earth? Since the
> advantages of space are energy and resources, and since these are at
> said NEO, wouldn't the refining, construction, and living be done at
> the NEO?

Note, I wrote "material." I'm mostly agnostic on whether the material
that comes back to cislunar space is refined, ore quality, ice or
dirt. What I thought was crucial was the transit time for the material.

If you want to analyze it a bit further, I'd factor in the
cost/benefit of maintaining some refining capacity at the NEO so far
from Earth and if it would be worth the cost savings of shipping only
refined goods rather than the higher bulk raw goods to be refined in
cislunar space.

As for living at the NEO, I'm not sure if you're advocating locating
the Habitats in the NEO orbit or just the refining/mining camp. If the
former, I think you'd be running into all sorts of logistic and
economic problems compared to cislunar space. If the latter then I
think you're looking at the issue of dispersing your life support
facilities throughout a LARGE area of space and the centralization
benefits of being in cislunar space are lost, i.e. multiple facilities
being supplied by transports of goods, gases, food, medical etc.

TangoMan