Re: Summery Study and colony location

From: Sander Vesik (sander_at_haldjas.folklore.ee)
Date: 07/31/04 

Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 20:44:39 +0000 (UTC)

Mike Combs <mikecombs@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote:
> "Sander Vesik" <sander@haldjas.folklore.ee> wrote in message
> news:1091070470.431016@haldjas.folklore.ee...
> >
> > So not only did they *NEVER* actually do any actual calculations about
> what is
> > feasible where and and not just simply resorted to hand waving, they
> didn't even
> > bother to give much though to handwaving at stuff that did not meet their
> initial
> > assumptions - or really, teh pre-ordained goal.
>
> I don't see this as a fair statement. The only way they could have delved
> as deeply into numerical comparisons as you might demand was if they had
> done 2 studies of equal magnitude: one for industiralization of space, and
> another for industiralization of the moon. Maybe they didn't have the time
> or money to do 2x the work.
>
> Instead they simply made the following points of logic:
>
> 1) HEO can sustain solar-powered operations without expensive storage
> systems 24/7 99% of the time. The lunar surface can only do this 2 weeks
> out of every 4.

Yeah, but who cares? Why is this metric even used? What special advantage
does it give? Remember that the mass driver would face this same limit, so
it doesn't even affect flow of material (and if you beam energy or have a
nuclear reactor you can use that for all the rest too).

>
> 2) The moon's gravity offers no particular advantage as long as a portion of
> an orbital facility can rotate. The moon's partial gravity, full gravity,
> or no gravity at all can be had in HEO depending on what's most advantageous
> for a given application.

Not relevant as we have no special processes to take advantage to any of
these for the issues at hand like extracting aluminum or oxygen. And no
apparent sources of funding for such.

>
> 3) HEO represents a reasonable middle ground between being close to the
> mining site, and being close to the final location for finished products.

No. This can *NOT* simply be claimed - it has to be proven by at least
some calculations showing that that really is the case.

>
> 4) Lunar surface processing might make sense only if it reduced the amount
> of material needing to be sent up. Given the assumption of slag-derived
> radiation sheilds, they concluded every atom of lunar material sent up was
> needed. You try to nullify this point simply by saying that you have no
> interest in radiation shielding, and elsewhere seem to be saying you don't
> think people will have much to do with ET industrialization.

No. Again. one cannot assume there will be humans unless you can show that
you *CAN* have gumans there and still remain profitable. Or compete with
others who also make SPS-s, except go about it differently and with a
much smaller human crew.

the same also applies to selection of orbit for the SPS building factory.

>
> 5) Costs for transporting ore processors and fabrication facilities from
> Earth to HEO are less than for Earth to lunar surface. I would add that
> maintenance costs would scale similarly.

Only relevant if it is not completely swamped by the need to launch
more from Moon and transport it all to HEO.

>
> 6) Heat radiation in vacuum is easier in 0-G away from the lunar surface.
>
> and having made these 6 logical points, proceeded with an assumption they
> felt was well-supported by those points.

Except for the last, these are all completely unwarrantied. There simply is
no reason to make such assumption.

>
> > Worse, as they mention a lunar base
> > (except smaller) later on anyways, all of teh reasoning for teh rest
> completely
> > loses its point.
>
> Untrue. By necessity, we must put mining equipment, and a means of
> delivering material off the surface, on the moon. That doesn't mean we need
> to put ore refineries or manufacturing facilities on the lunar surface.
> Their recomendation was to hold off on that end of it until there was a
> requirement for finished products whose end use was on the lunar surface
> (like Mass Driver 2). Nobody ever said the advantage of HEO processing is
> that you can blow off doing a moonbase. But being able to get started with
> a smaller, less-expensive moonbase is a definite advantage.

Again, they have no numbers to show that any of this makes any sense
whatsoever. 

-- 
	Sander
+++ Out of cheese error +++

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