[ExI] Mining the Sky SL Talk I gave today

[samantha]

Mike Dougherty wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net 
> <mailto:wingcat at pacbell.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     Yes.  However, retrieval isn't as big a problem as
>     securing the area against others who would like to
>     "retrieve" what you de-orbited (ruining the whole point
>     of the operation).  (You'll also need to secure against
>     spectators.)  Unless you can get at least Predator-grade
>     unmanned vehicles, you're going to need your own humans
>     present, for security at least.
>
>
> I thought our big problem was getting stuff out of earth's gravity 
> well, not flinging stuff down into it.
>
> If you can gather enough mass together from outside earth, why not 
> park and use it for a space elevator?  Then you'd just ferry the 
> useful bits down the elevator to counter other useful (probably 
> expensive) stuff going up to do more elaborate processing.  After you 
> get enough useful mass parked, processed and upgraded for other cool 
> uses wouldn't we be in a better position to launch new efforts 
> directly from space?

A space elevator comes much later.  You need exotic materials, very 
fancy engineering and an awful lot of red tape and insurance to tackle 
that one.  A lot more than dropping a few things in deserted areas 
requires.
>
> Hurling rocks at the ground (no matter how accurately) seems like a 
> lot of inefficiency.
>
Heck, gravity does the work for you except for packing it up and a bit 
of small scale cosmic pool to set its trajectory.

Personally, the main wonderful thing to me about developing near earth 
resources is that you get all that lovely useful very heavy material 
"out there". out of the gravity well, without having to mortgage the 
entire planet to get it there.    Using that material you can build out 
space based solar and solve what is probably I most pressing immediate 
issue on earth, the pending Energy Crisis.    You can also drop down 
critical  materials we are running low on down here.  The precious 
metals are mainly, in my mind, a way to quickly fund more launches and 
amass a lot of working capital while the groundlings come to understand 
the huge future value of what you are gathering in orbit.

Space elevators?  Sure, but a bit down the road.

- samantha

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