[ExI] Asteroidal mining was Nukes was less expensive energy

[Keith Henson]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM,  Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> wrote:

snip

> I'm not interested in holding out for grand schemes
> that never happen.? I want to see tiny remote control
> mining operations demonstrating and keeping what
> they mine and build upon.?

Have you ever worked the engineering numbers?  Dr. Eric Drexler and I
have done some of them, as has Dr John Lewis of the University of
Arizona.  Do you have any proposals to get around the surface
radiation and conduction problems for small systems?  How long do your
proposed "tiny remote control mining operations" take to build their
own mass in products?  Have you considered the speed of light delay in
remote control?

> Every government effort
> is abandoned without leaving something to build
> upon.? Iron-nickel can be built upon and added to
> creating a basis for ever expanding mining.? The up
> front cost is the remote control center back on Earth
> and getting the small mining devices to the places
> they can start mining and manufacturing.?

Have you thought about how big these need to be?  I can make a case
for one massing 50,000 tons, incorporating a 5-10 GW power satellite
and manned by 500 people.  I expect this plant to make it's own mass
in product (nickel) in around 50 days.  It's really not obvious to me
how to scale it down or operate it with a few hours of delay in the
control loop.

> At some
> point enough infrastructure can be built remotely
> to do repairs on existing infrastructure and simple
> repairs to the remote control devices.? Avoid the
> manned expenses until enough infrastructure exists
> to justify it.? Remotes can build up resources in
> advance to reduce the manned expenses.

I would very much appreciate details on your proposal, proposed
processes, launch masses, transit times, production rates, control
strategies and the supporting spreadsheets.

> Everyone would like there to be a golden egg
> waiting in space to pay the way for industrialization.
> If you wait for the golden egg it many never happen.
> I say create the opportunity.
>
> A remote mining demonstrator fusing iron-nickel
> dust into useful structures might go a long way
> towards opening up capital.

No doubt it would.  How do you propose to make iron-nickel dust?  How
do you propose to move it to the location you want to fuse it?  What
energy source are you proposing to fuse it?

I am trying not to be snarkey because if you really have good idea on
how to do this, I would like to help.

Best wishes,

Keith Henson

> Dennis May