Heat management, recycling, $, and space ores

Al Globus wrote:

> I've done a fair amount of carbon nanotube research for NASA (see
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/1997/applications/
> and http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/papers/NanoSpace1999/paper.html).
> Last I looked, the longest carbon nanotube ropes were about 1/2 mm,
> which is very long for a molecule. Thus, we need to scale the length by
> about 7 orders of magnitude to make an orbital tower. Ropes are
> believed to contain continuous carbon nanotubes, but that has not been
> proven. Weaving carbon nanotube may be difficult because Van der Walls
> forces between the tubes are quite weak. It may be possible to
> functionalize the nanotubes with other molecules so they bind with each
> other, but getting the functional groups in between tubes in an
> individual rope may be very difficult.

Maybe it's possible to form rings?

> Without a cheap reliable launch vehicle, this is just talk.
> Unfortunately.

I'm wondering if this is the tail wagging the dog. If we can get
space mining going WITHOUT humans then you can bet cheap, reliable
vehicles are right behind. That's the dog. The tail of the dog
is getting into space. Which one is going to be the bigger business?