[ExI] A possible X Prize

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 08:11:31AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:

> Titanium isn't particularly rare.  And linear motors are *so* 70s.

Dirt cheap zero impact titanium air-dropped to your location is pretty rare.

> For the moon, an elevator out through L1 made of dental floss works

Would you need a counterweight for the other end?

> just fine and you don't have to soft land a single kg on the moon to
> do it.

I've seen estimates of M5 fiber with ~7 ton cable,
with 200 kg surface initial lifting capacity.
 
> Mass payback is under 100 days.
> 
> With big lasers, delta V is inexpensive.  Injection velocity from GEO
> to intercept the huge solid metal asteroid 1986 DA is only 140 m/s.
> 
> Processing it would take melting and rolling into thin ribbon.  The
> ribbon would be dissolved in high pressure CO making carbonals.  These

Metal carbonyls.

> can be sorted out and reduced to nickel, cobalt and iron with all the
> other metals in the leftover dust.
> 
> A 50,000 ton plant should be able to process its own mass in a couple of months.
> 
> I don't think you can make a case for returning the iron, but the rest
> of it should be worth it to sell to the earth market.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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