Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO254.TXT

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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 05:00:04
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #254
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon, 28 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 254

Today's Topics:
                  Clinton and Space Funding (4 msgs)
                                Ethics
      Government and private R&D (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
                              govn't R&D
                   Hypersonic test vehicle proposed
                           JPL robot papers
                  Military Sat photos, info required
 Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
                            overpopulation
  PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EA (2 msgs)
         Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)

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Date: 27 Sep 92 11:59:50 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>Chris's mission was government financed. So were most of the other
>early "missions" to the new world by other governments.  The difference is
>that the missions were not to investigate scientific principles but to
>icrease the wealth of the mother countries.  This was also true in Roman
>times with Roman colonies supported by the state after the legions killed
>all the oppostion.  This also happened in the Ionian settlements of Athens
>in what is now Turkey.  Also happened in Sicily.  The Carthigenians and
>their Phonecian Ancestors also applied this logic.
>
>Funny how the space program is stalled because of the insistance on
>Scientific missions as opposed to development oriented missions.  Why do
>I say this? Look at the record. Since 1972 we have visited every planet in
>the solar system plus most of their moons with Gaspra thrown in as a bonus.
>How many Lunar missions have we had in that time period?  How many asteroid
>only misions have we had? Actions speak far louder than words on this subject.

Well, we haven't visited Mercury or Pluto *yet*. We've started the first
Grand Tour of the solar system to see what's out there. That's the first
step in removing those dragons from the map. While early explorers' missions
were funded in the hope that the knowledge gained would *eventually* pay off
in commercial gain, most early exploration did not result in gain for the
backers or the explorers. Columbus wound up in debtor's prison.

>Lunar Prospector tried to overcome this with a private effort but was
>plagued with difficulties not related to the spacecraft effort.  Why not
>all of us smart boys here on the net start designing a basic lunar mission
>and think about raising the bucks.  Anybody out there have the guts?
>The obvious retort is why don't you do it. Well well well........:-)

Dennis, we are planning to return to the Moon, though that depends a
lot on the outcome of the current political race. However, we're not
yet ready for a new Hudson's Bay Company. We still need a few more of
those dreaded *scientific* missions to tell us the lay of the land.
My understanding of the Lunar Prospector was that it was to be such
a scientific spy mission.

The Hudson's Bay Company is not a bad model for Lunar development.
It had a government franchise and private funding. The question is,
what will be the lunar equivalent of beaver pelts? We need to know
that before we can mount a significant commercial venture.

Gary

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 14:10:56 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>
>>Let's see, ole Chris landed in the New World in 1492, the first viable
>>colony landed in 1620. Apollo landed on the Moon in 1969. So we should
>>expect private enterprise to land a commercial colony on the Moon about
>>2097.
>
>Sorry, Gary, back to the history books.  Columbus's first voyage was
>financed by his uncle, who had made money on earlier Portugese voyages,
>and a fringe religious group with large real estate holdings.

Read before you complain Nick. I didn't claim Columbus was government
funded.

>Spanish colonies were founded in the second and subsequent voyages,
>which were underwritten by Isabel under the mistaken belief that Columbus
>had found a new route to India.  The colonies were made possible in no
>small part because air, water, food and energy were native, not
>imported.  There were hundreds of thousands of people of primarily
>Spanish descent living in the New World by 1629, along the the world's
>largest gold & silver operations and some rather spectacular cathedrals.

Spanish "colonies" were fundamentally different from the Plymouth colony
which is why I didn't include them. They were Missions, funded by the
Church, and they were Conquistidors funded by the Spanish "military
industrial complex." They were mainly *men* who acquired "native" women as
companions, something highly unlikely in outer space since "Mars Needs
Women", or so I've heard. :-)

>The reason commerce isn't colonizing the moon is quite simple really;
>there isn't anything there to make one wealthy.  It's an obstacle, like
>Death Valley was an obstacle to the 49ers -- the borax came later and
>didn't convince very many people to live in Death Valley.

Indeed. As I remarked in another post to Dennis comparing private lunar
exploitation to the Hudson's Bay Company model, "Where's the beaver pelts?"
The Moon may have considerable scientific and military value, and the
gravity may be *necessary* for long term human occupation as opposed to
free flight colonies, but there's little of commercial interest to Earth
bound companies that we have discovered so far. The Moon is not well
explored, however, and something equivalent to borax may be waiting there
for us to find.

>Meanwhile, it is useful to put comsats in GEO, and commerce has spent $10's
>of billions on that; it is useful to keep watchtowers in space and
>the military has spent $10's of billions on that.  Farther out beyond
>Death Valley, the relatively unexplored parts of the solar system, like
>asteroids and comets, could well provide the next big boost for commerce,
>and both the funding and technology for truly self-sufficient space
>colonies.

Possible. Government funding is not necessary any more for comsats,
that industry has already been jumpstarted to profitability. The
military is just a customer, though a demanding one, for spysat
systems. Government efforts need to concentrate on jumpstarting
new activities in space and on planetary bodies. Thus both Fred
and a Lunar outpost are justified on the grounds of research and
development into new technologies and new environments. I know you
prefer comets, and think Fred and Apollo II are obstacles to your
holy grail, but not all of us agree that robotics is up to the
task or that we should take such a long step away from home in
one fell swoop.

Gary

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 17:17:41 GMT
From: StarOwl <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

[e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
: [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:

: >Spanish colonies were founded in the second and subsequent voyages,
: >which were underwritten by Isabel under the mistaken belief that Columbus
: >had found a new route to India.  The colonies were made possible in no
: >small part because air, water, food and energy were native, not
: >imported.  There were hundreds of thousands of people of primarily
: >Spanish descent living in the New World by 1629, along the the world's
: >largest gold & silver operations and some rather spectacular cathedrals.
:
: Spanish "colonies" were fundamentally different from the Plymouth colony
: which is why I didn't include them. They were Missions, funded by the
: Church, and they were Conquistidors funded by the Spanish "military
: industrial complex." They were mainly *men* who acquired "native" women as
: companions, something highly unlikely in outer space since "Mars Needs
: Women", or so I've heard. :-)

What I'd like to know is why you chose to forget about the settling of
the Virginia colony in 1607, or the founding of Quebec in 1608.

--
Michael Adams (aka StarOwl)             "Republicans understand the
Internet:  [e-mail]             importance of bondage between
Bitnet:    FREE1217@UIUCVMD             parent and child."
Anonymous: [e-mail]            -- Dan Quayle
UUCP:      ...!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!StarOwl

Marrou/Lord in '92

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 15:18:38 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>
>Not true.  Japan has been growing faster than U.S. economically
>since World War II, because the U.S. was taking more money out of
>the private sector and spending it on the Cold War.  Japan spends
>much more of its R&D funds in the private sector than the U.S., and

Voodoo economics Nick. Most US military R&D is spent in the private
sector paying private companies acting as private contractors to
the military. Cold war research money didn't just evaporate any more
than money spent during Apollo wound up on the Moon. It stayed right
here brightening private commercial firms' bottom lines making money
available to then to fund their own private R&D work if they so chose.
Japan spends no more funds in the private sector than the US does,
in fact our R&D expenditures are still 2.5 times as high as theirs.

>Japan's stock market has crashed, in anticipation of a flux of talent
>and money into the U.S. private sector giving us a trade advantage.
>If we put that money into commercially useless projects like space
>stations and Apollo reruns, we will lose that advantage.  If we
>put it into commercially important areas like comsats and the airline
>industry, as well as judicious amounts into long-term exploration
>and research, we are much more likely to gain competitiveness.

Again wrong. The Japanese stock market crashed because of world
currency fluctuations, the worldwide recession, and the collapse of
a massive speculative boom. Their stocks were overvalued by over 4x
the multiplier of US stocks. If our *government* puts money into
profitable industries like comsats and aircraft manufacture, then it
puts itself in competition with private capitalists. Better that it let
it's citizens invest directly and reap the rewards directly. Where the
government should put it's money is in areas that aren't yet developed
enough to be attractive to private investors without government subsidy
such as space manufacturing, heavy launch systems, and space platforms for
biological, materials, and space processing research as well as into
exploration and prospecting for extraterrestrial materials on the Moon
and other bodies. The government has to act on return schedules that
private investors shun, decades and centuries rather than months and
quarters.

Gary

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 01:23:30 GMT
From: Robert Dinse <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ethics
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tom) writes:
> It's not contradictory.  You can value some life more than other life, but
> not some life more than human life, unless you are highly confused.  If you
> value life-in-general, you must value Human life (at least your own) as
> much.  Call them equal, if you like, and they are interchangable.  Any
> compromise depends on whatever is between life and non-life.  Good luck.

     I would gather a lot of people are highly confused based on this
conversation alone!

     It amazes me that people would complain about terraforming Mars, a planet
which while it may have teamed with life millions of years ago, is by present
evidence, quite dead, and at the same time find destroying a planet teaming
with life, Ie, Terra, Earth, perfectly ok.

     If anything we can do with Mars could possibly have the effect of
lessening the pressure on our Earthly environment, let's do it, yesterday!

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 17:54:17 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Government and private R&D (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes...
>>In article <[e-mail]> rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes:

            ........................

>When Government R&D has been given a specific, concrete goal and has been
>given the resources to carry it out, (Early American canal system, Railroads,
>Panama canal, WWII, A bombs, H Bombs, Apollo) it has been wildly successful.
>The common denomonator in the above so called failures is a lack of will and
>lack of vision (sense of purpose) in carrying the effort to its finish.

>Where government has been a dismal failure is in pursing general goals using
>the specific goal approach, (war on poverty, Great Society, Welfare system,
>income redistribution,)  This was very well laid out in the book " Heavens and
>the Earth".

Railroads were not done with much of government money until the private sector
had proved them workable.  But all of these successes cited were essentially
development, where the research had already been done.  There was a little
research involved in the development of the A bomb, and some more in the
development of the H bomb, but relatively little.  And when social dreamers
say that something can be done without considering the state of the universe,
disaster is almost certain.

But research is a tricky business, and the more basic the research, the less
one can even predict whether there will be success.  The research which led
to nuclear fission was Meitner's observation of the presence of such things
as strontium in uranium ore, and the leap to fission from that.  Such
observations have been present throughout history; the principle of
serendipity is everpresent, and surprise is the norm.  Sure, the Van Allen
belts could have been foreseen, but they were not.  Relativity, hardly; the
Michelson-Morley experiment, supposed to measure the velocity of earth
relative to the ether, turned up nothing, which was even more important!
On page 63 of this week's _Time_, there is a report of a medical contribution
uncovered by research rejected by the government.  In case you do not know,
Congress is right now considering greatly restricting NSF funding for pure
research, which BTW NSF has already reduced.  I believe that if 5% of the
money now going into attempts to cure cancer and AIDS were diverted into
blue-sky basic medical research the results would be far greater than from
the other 95%.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 14:49:33 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: govn't R&D
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jason D Corley ) writes:
>>
>>    It all becomes this question: What are we looking for
>>when we go into space?  How much are we willing to sacrifice for
>>it?  And what will we do when we get there?
>
>We're looking for stuff that is (a) useful, so people will pay for
>it and (b) builds a market for industrial capabilities like launch
>vehicles that help the entire space industry.  The answer to the
>dilemna could well be this: NASA should conduct research,
>build prototypes, and publish them; commercial industry should implement
>and operate.

I agree with this part in part.

>NASA should not presume to predict the industries of the
>future; it should follow the lead of commerce and do research in support
>of it (esp. comsats, launch vehicle technology, and the airline industry
>should be the biggest engineering programs under its charter).

And I strongly disagree with this part. NASA's charter is to break new
ground, not act as the captive applied engineering branch of some commercial
entity. NASA is supposed to operate out on the edge where no commercial firm
will venture, doing exploration and pure research that drive new technologies.
*And* doing the operational things that allow such research, such as Fred and
the Shuttle and an outpost on the Moon. If profitable commercial interests
want their lead to be followed, then let them *lead* with their own money
and their own engineers. NASA has no charter to *follow* anyone else's lead.
It's supposed to be a leader itself in areas where commercial entities fear
to go.

Comsats are a profitable business, no more government kickstart is required,
let them pay for their own engineering staffs. Aircraft manufacturers are
profitable businesses, let then hire their own engineers to design their own
airliners. Space launch systems aren't yet profitable without government
subsidy and support. NASA should be involved here with HLV programs, SSTO
programs, NASP, and even more exotic systems. As NASA contractors find
profitable applications of NASA funded technology developments, let them
*license* the technology from NASA and persue their own profits in the
private space business. NASA can move on to the next challenge.

>It
>should also engange in exploration for it's own sake; we're not so
>poor that we can't afford to expand our horizons.

Yes, we've done the Grand Tour, now it's time to take a closer and more
detailed look in our own backyard then move out further a step at a time
as our experience and database grow. Our first major objective should be
to throughly explore our nearest neighbor in space with deep drilling
programs and surface exploring to find out more than flying sensor platforms
can tell us. Once we are confident we can do those tasks well, then we can
look at the only other place in the solar system where running water once
existed. We can even fly some more box brownies to some of the tourist
attractions in the system like Jupiter and the Comets. (sounds like a
sixties music group)

Gary

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 17:38:11 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed
Newsgroups: sci.space

On Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:01:05 GMT, [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) said:

Mary> And to tie this to another thread, I've just been made HL-20 Chief
Mary> Engineer at Dryden.  Langley Research Center is the Lead Center for
Mary> HL-20, of course.

I thought I'd better make things more explicit for people who are
less familiar with the NASA system.

Langley Research Center, as the Lead Center on the HL-20, has quite an
effort going.  They've done the vehicle design, considering reentry
dynamics, aerodynamics, maintainability, reliability, and a host of
other issues.  Another group has designed a very nice flight control
system and examined this both analytically and in fixed- and
moving-base simulators.  They've had a mockup built to look at the
servicing issues.  They've examined thermal protection, etc.  The
HL-20 is really their baby and they've done a very nice job with it.

Dryden has me, part time (I'm Chief Engineer on the F-104 External
Vision Device and Principle Investigator and Project Engineer on the
ATLAS--Adaptable Target Lighting Array System-- program); a simulation
engineer (as soon as the CV-990 sim gets done); and a consultant
ex-lifting-body pilot.  We're going to support Langley with our efforts.

On the other hand, Dryden is the only NASA installation with real,
flown lifting bodies; we've got the HL-10 on a plinth out in front of
the Facility and the M2-F1 is tucked in a hangar, awaiting
refurbishment.

--
Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
[e-mail]                    Of course I don't speak for NASA
 "There's no kill like a guns kill." LCDR "Hoser" Satrapa, gunnery instructor
                       "A kill is a kill."  Anonymous

------------------------------

Date: 26 Sep 92 14:52:39 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: JPL robot papers
Newsgroups: sci.space

Are there any papers on the Rocky series of robots from JPL available
for FTP (or by real mail)?

thanks

Bill

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 16:23:11 GMT
From: Steve Grant <[e-mail]>
Subject: Military Sat photos, info required
Newsgroups: sci.space

Hello all,
         I am looking to ask some one a few questions, if there is anyone
on the net in this line of work. Thanks in advance.

Steve Grant
PLS E-mail responses
DOMAIN: [e-mail]
SNAIL: Steve Grant
       9 Tui Vale Av
       Howick, Auckland
       New Zealand
FAX: (64)+(9) 5794813

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 12:29:55 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:


  > 1. Shuttle is not a failure 49 out of 50 ain't bad.  Look to Congress
  > and Cap Wineburger for the high operational costs of the shuttle.

In other words, "the shuttle's not a failure, and it's not NASA's
fault anyway!".   Can you write two sentences without contradicting
yourself?

The purpose of the shuttle was to reduce the cost of getting into
space.  The shuttle has been a dismal failure in meeting this,
its primary goal.

  > 2. Clinch River Breeder.  Congress cut the money due to Three Mile
  > Island and the anti-nuclear hysteria.

Wrong.  The CRBR was cut mainly because it was completely unnecessary.
The need for a fast-track development of breeders was predicated in
the assumption that world-wide uranium consumption would grow much
faster than it has.  Today, the spot market price for uranium is
around $10/lb.  Breeder reactors makes no sense at all at this price.

 > 3.  Synfuels.  Jimmy Carter's idea to destroy mountains in the west for
 > shale oil.  Would have been so toxic to the environment that even the
 > oil companies did not want to deal with it.  Bad idea pushed by so called
 > environmentalist President (can you name his latter day descendant?) Of Gore
 > you can.

Oil shale was only one part of the synfuels program.  Petrochemicals
from coal was another.  Note that we are still mining huge amounts of
coal, so the environmental effects are occuring anyway.

Synfuels failed because the price of oil dropped, not because
environmentalists complained.  Oil companies were leery of oil shale
development because they could make no money on it.

 > 4. Fusion.  Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy
 > needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems.  No failures in the
 > technology just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology.

Nonsense.  Fusion has turned out to be a hell of a lot harder than the
hucksters had promised us.  The reactor concepts are engineering
nightmares.  Since availability of fuel is not the problem with
fission -- capital cost and scale of the plants is -- fusion is
solving (or, rather, promising us it will solve) the wrong problem.

As for intra-solarsystem propulsion, it would be economic idiocy to
work on fusion just because we might have a use for fusion rockets in
100 years.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 16:54:20 GMT
From: Bruce Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: overpopulation
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>[e-mail] (Bruce Scott) writes:
>>But this is just because the great die-off has started.
>"Great die off" is bullshit, of course.  The world population has
>never been healthier, wealthier or longer lived, on average, and
>the trends are positive in most of the world.

Au contraire. For Asia, excepting India, you are correct. For Africa and
Brazil, you're dead wrong. I think you may be misled by trade figures
and the like in cases like India and Brazil. There is no question that
for the "middle class" in those countries things have never been better.
But this class is no larger than 30 pct for Brazil and 10 for India. Yes
I know, that is only two countries, but they are big countries and when
they go wrong it is not trivial. India has been charmed by the lack of
really big natural disasters for some time now. But in the 1950's there
was a famine whose effects were averted because the US fed the whole
population for two years. That was with 300 million people. They lose if
that happens now. I do note the absence of comment from you concerning
last year's disaster in Bangladesh. I repeat that 3 million homeless on
shifting mud flats do not happen unless population limits have already
been crossed. Unlike Floridans, many of them simply starved to death.

A little travel where things have gone wrong can really open eyes. I
suggest it, even only once. I've seen this for myself in Eastern Turkey.
These armies of dirty children who feed off passers by will not grow up
into the rosy Third-World technocrats one reads about in G Harry Stine
novels.

Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott                             The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de                 -- W Gibson

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 16:43:05 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EA
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Alan Barclay) writes:
>In a previous message you said that mars' gravity was too light to hang on the
>lighter gasses, thus the atmosphere is thin.  Titan, a moon of Saturn is
>slightly smaller than mars and has an atmospheric density twice earths at the
>surface.  How do you explain that? :)

Actually, that isn't the primary reason for Mars' thin atmosphere. But
a planet's ability to retain gases has to do with both temperature _and_
gravity. If a gas molecule's thermal velocity is greater than the
planet's escape velocity, it will be lost (very rough approximation).
Lighter gases have higher thermal velocities at the same temperature, so
they are more easily lost.

                                                   Frank Crary
                                                   CU Boulder

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 16:56:31 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EA
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Jones) writes:
>Mars is colder but lost most everything because of its size.

This isn't the usual explanation for Mars' thin atmosphere: The theoretical
loss rates for gases escaping the atmosphere are too slow to account
for the planet's atmosphere.

I think the accepted theory starts with the loss of carbon dioxide to
geological processes: This gas disolves into oceans (Mars of 3.7 billion
years ago had such oceans), and reacts with disolved calcium to form
calcium carbonate rock. On Earth, there is a balance, because plate
techtonics result in the subduction of ocean floors, the melting of
calcium carbonate rock and the subsequent venting of carbon dioxide out
of volcanoes. On Mars, which lacking such an active geology, the carbon
dioxide is simply removed from the atmosphere and sits on the bottom of
the oceans (while they last). By pulling a major greenhouse gas out
of the atmosphere causes a major drop in temperature and other
atmospheric components (such as water and more carbon dioxide during the
winter) freeze out. The result is an trend a colder and thiner
atmosphere. (Of course, this mechanism works only as long as there are
oceans. After a point, the atmosphere is too cold and thin to sustain
them, and other loss mechanisms must have taken over.)

                                                     Frank Crary
                                                     CU Boulder

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 12:17:32 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Nick, Nick, Nick, don't you ever read the reports about recently discovered
>near Earth Asteroids?

I've been reading and posting about them for years. :-)

>There is one of the found in 1987 (I forgot the
>designator) that is confirmed by albedo and spectral studies to be nickel
>iron, as are about 10% of all meteorites found on earth.

But this is a poor source of metal, unless there is surface metal
regolith.  It's very tough to chop solid metal into pieces.
We do find metal regolith in many carbanacious meteorites,
and as a bonus the platinum group is enriched (in some
carbonaceous meteorites) to concentrations much higher than earth ores.
We have to do significant exploration to find the right asteroids; picking
random ones doens't work (which is why I get uptight when they target yet
more boring silicate-type asteroids).  Furthermore, we need volatiles
to process the metals into useful products, and for propellant to
bring the stuff back to earth orbit safely.

>...there was approximately 90 billion dollars worth
>of gold and 1 trillion dollars worth of Platinum, give or take a few million.

But there's $10's of trillions on Earth.  What is important is the
concentration, and our ability to send out equipment to process the
stuff, and (especially in the case of low price/# commodities like
nickel and iron) our ability to bring it down to earth safely and
politically correctly, which I doubt for the cheaper stuff.  The
concentration of platinum is much higher than on earth in certain kinds
of asteroid regolith; the concentration of gold is much lower than earth
mines in everything we've looked at so far.  I'm hoping for placer
gold deposits on Mars, but that's speculative at this point; MO may
provide some good clues.

>Currently a new oil field cost
>10 billion to develop (Alaska North Slope for example).  This is no more than
>a mission to develop the asteriod would cost, with a far greater pay off.

Do you have a design overview for this, and cost estimates for the
components, that you could post?  Similar mining equipment on earth
weighs in the thousands of tons; just launching it to LEO would use up
most of your budget.  I have checked out the stuff done at the
various space development cons BTW.  Some of it assumed the promised
shuttle price of $200/kg to LEO, some even less for a specualitve SSTO.
The real price, which has been similar for decades, is $6,500/kg and
up.  None of the equipment designs are detailed enough to get a good
grip on their difficulty and costs.

Not that I don't think we'll be able to do it in two to four decades, and
for less investment and more revenue than most other space-mining schemes,
but there's a large amount of automation tech, space-dynamics tech,
mining-in-vacuum tech, processing tech, etc. that needs to be designed
and tested.  Most mining & sorting equipment  assumes gravity, atmosphere
or both.  The NASA projects you keep promoting spend $100's of billions
while ignoring this stuff.  This is another example where NASA should be
working on commercially promising stuff, instead of going off in its own
dead-end direction.   The best space suits and capsules in the
universe won't let us mine an asteroid if the dust clogs or grinds
down the machines.  Most likely, a requirement for astronauts in the
early stages will drive costs through the roof and destroy profitability.
The cheapest suggested astronaut beyond-moon mission costs $150 billion,
15 times your suggested budget, and requires on native propellant from
the Martian atmosphere, not available on asteroids unless we find metal
and ice on the same rock.  The equipment tech is much more important,
and almost totally ignored by NASA.

Meanwhile, we can go a long ways by bootstrapping volatiles, which can
be processed using much lighter and simpler pieces of equipment with
a much higher thruput -- purifying propellant out of ices and extracting
propellant from the Martian atmosphere being two exemplars.  Propellant
and tank (ice has a zero tankage factor) make up over 90% of the mass
needed to get out to the asteroids and back. Once we have cheap propellant,
it becomes much easier to get that heavy equipment out to the asteroids,
and get the payload back, and volatiles for lubricant and cooling make
it much easier to design and operate that equipment.  And shielding and
life support, so we can finally afford astronauts!


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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 254
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