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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Tom Nowell<br><b><span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span></b></span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'>Regarding the current lack of fabrication in orbit - it was a criticism of NASA in the 90s that not enough work was being done on materials science and fabrication in microgravi</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>… </span><span style='color:black'>Tom</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Over fifty yrs ago, the US president issued a technical challenge to take a man to the moon and back in this decade etc. American rose to that challenge and made happen. Now we face another worthwhile space goal: take any existing space material, including spent rocket motors, dead satellites, etc, dock with it in orbit, take the materials and process it into something else, anything useful. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>An example would be dock with an dead satellite, strip off the aluminized mylar, grind it, recover the aluminum, make a solar sail using the design I proposed in a technical paper last fall. That sail had a microprocessor (which we would be allowed to make down here and take along) and was guided by three LCD variable reflectors (which could also be made down here. That design was 15 cm across and had a mass of one gram, but I would be open minded on what qualifies as “anything useful.” Making some kind of semi-autonomous on-orbit manufacturing device is a good way forward from here and a cool interesting new technical challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>