Asri-unix.1004
net.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC
Sat Mar 13 07:00:56 1982
Source of carbon
Greg Yob suggests that carbonaceous meteors might have falled on the
moon and remained near enough the surface to be profitable to mine. We
might survey this from orbit, perhaps on the same mission as the polar
orbiter (looking for water ice near poles). Once we locate the
carbonaceous meteorites, I'm not sure how best to collect them. Maybe
take a large survey and try to find the largest concentration in a
local area, and send a lander there with a rover to go around and
collect them all. In any case, it might be faster to pick the
meteorites off the moon than try to divert an asteroid or comet to
Earth vicinity. (Recall, orbital mechanics would cause asteroid or
comet capture to take many years, whereas objects can be picked off
the moon in just a couple weeks once we know where to land.) Thus
during initial bootstrapping when we need a moderate amoung of Carbon
*FAST* we might be better getting it from the Moon.