Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids
Message-ID: <1927@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 18 Dec 89 18:58:55 GMT
References: <8912131901.AA16418@ll-vlsi.arpa> <5909@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <17442@nuchat.UUCP> <1989Dec15.173936.23235@utzoo.uucp> <25145@cup.portal.com>
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 21
Reply-exos:@crdgw1:To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)

In article <25145@cup.portal.com> hkhenson@cup.portal.com (H Keith Henson) writes:

| About 10 years ago Eric Drexler and I wrote a paper on furnaces to 
| process metals in space.  I would be interested if Steve has any new 
| ideas on how to get heat to the metal *without* curding up the mirrors
| with various rock and metal vapors.  Keith Henson

  I had assumed that if there were a problem in this area it would be
transporting the furnace. If the material to be melted were placed in a
cylinder of, say, ceramic, heating the cylinder would cause the
outgassing to come from the ends with some reasonable velocity. If the
mirror were on the side of the cylinder it would be at right angles to
the outgassing as should get minimal depositing.

  This is so simple and obvious that I must be missing something. What
is it, please?
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon