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From: REM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Elton Maas)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: alchemy not needed for Titanium from lunar soil
Message-ID: <8602171205.AA29281@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 07:05:07 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8602171205.AA29281
Posted: Mon Feb 17 07:05:07 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 04:07:17 EST
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Reply-To: REM%IMSSS@SU-SCORE.ARPA
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R> Date: 4 Feb 86 23:09:01 GMT
R> From: ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!hropus!riccb!rjnoe@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Roge
r J. Noe)
R> Subject: Re: Remotely Controlled Manipulators in Space
R> ...
R> What, you just drop it on the lunar surface and it installs itself?
R> That would be multiplying the complexity of the thing considerably.
R> And of course you build in a Junior Alchemy set so that it can transform
R> lunar soil into titanium.  Oh, not impossible maybe, but certainly
R> a couple centuries into the future.  And many quadrillions of dollars.

Don't be an ignorant smartass! Surveys from the Apollo sampling expeditions
show lunar soil to be quite rich by earth standards, if I recall correctly a
few percent? With abundant sunlight for energy, abundant free soil to process,
and abundant unused real-estate to dump the unwanted portions (mostly oxygen
silicon and aluminum if I remember correctly), we could set up a titanium
production plant within ten years if we had funding. We can be very sloppy,
recovering only half the titanium in the soil and dumping the rest with the
waste materials, thus simplifying the engineering and chemistry. There's no
need for alchemy, simple inorganic chemistry and electrolysys will do it.