[ExI] Mining the Sky SL Talk I gave today

[David Lubkin]

Adrian wrote:

>By the time you've got it confined to said empty region, you've 
>probably got ways to track it.  If nothing else, other people will 
>track it anyway; if you ask nice, they can provide some very precise 
>coordinates, possibly even video tracking it to within a few 
>kilometers of impact.
>
>Which isn't to say you can do those other things too.  Just that 
>there doesn't seem to be a point, if you have it confined to a large 
>region anyway.

Why manually search a few kilometers of ocean, tundra, or desert
if you don't have to? If you engineer sensable characteristics --
radio transmission, distinctive color+pattern, etc. -- precise location
can be automated.

BTW, what volume and mass are you envisioning per shipment?

Are tele-operated land or sea vehicles good enough they could
be used for retrieval? (For land, taking into account that anywhere
desolate enough to be a good landing zone probably has natural
characteristics (e.g., bitter cold or sand+heat) that would stress
vehicles.)


-- David.