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From: szabo@sequent.com
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space
Subject: Re: Platinum-group metal concentrations in earth-crossing objects
Keywords: ice
Message-ID: <1991Jun16.031907.29055@sequent.com>
Date: 16 Jun 91 03:19:07 GMT
References: <1991Jun12.073415.12543@sequent.com> <1991Jun16.000359.10311@world.std.com> <1991Jun16.003812.11369@world.std.com>
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Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 33

In article <1991Jun16.003812.11369@world.std.com> webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber) writes:

[Use ice as source for water and carbon monoxide for asteroid material
processing]

>To me this makes the scheme seem even less likely, or at
>least less predictable, since one has to assume that yet another whole
>range of technical problems have been overcome cheaply.

This is why the ice mining industry needs to be self-supporting outside
of platinum mining.  Indeed, this is a general principle that central 
planners usually miss out on -- the technology needs to evolve in such a 
way that each step is self-sufficient.  Grand schemes to mine the platinum 
right now, without having first done the exploration and developed the 
simpler industries, would likely end in financial disaster.

Ice can provide reaction mass, fuel, shielding, and heat sinks for
Earth orbiting spacecraft, so that ice mining, if undertaken with 
sufficiently low costs, can pay for itself with current markets.
How soon this will become possible depends on whether or not, and how 
soon, we discover earth-crossing ice, or as a second choice high 
concentrations of water of hydration, in good trajectories.  It also 
depends on our ability to reduce the cost of automated missions on the 
order of complexity of CRAF and Phobos.   Currently CRAF is in sad shape, 
using 70's-era computer chips and having to drop the penetrator.  We all
know what happened to Phobos.  :-(  We need to be a generation or two 
beyond that.


-- 
Nick Szabo			szabo@sequent.com
Embrace Change...  Keep the Values...  Hold Dear the Laughter...
These views are my own, and do not represent any organization.