[ExI] A possible X Prize

Keith Henson hkeithhenson at gmail.com
Fri May 27 15:11:31 UTC 2011


On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

snip

> There's the problem of delta v. In principle you could mine
> some rarer minerals on the moon (e.g. titanium and other metals
> via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFC_Cambridge_process ),
> launch them via linear motors, using minimal rocket burn and
> aerobraking (ceramics sheath, foam airfoil) with controlled
> descent to point of delivery.

Titanium isn't particularly rare.  And linear motors are *so* 70s.
For the moon, an elevator out through L1 made of dental floss works
just fine and you don't have to soft land a single kg on the moon to
do it.

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
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.

Keith

Keith


 enough to mine asteroids for



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list