Scott Lowther wrote:

You have built bench-scale prototypes. For building sustainable
settlements, you need industrial-scale technology.

How many times have I said that we lack the infrastructure? Sheesh.

Apparently you are using 'infrastructure' to mean 'working technology'.

Prototypes are just that, prototypes. They are not demonstrations
that we have a technology.


For that matter, you need a settlement that can build replacements
for all its vital equipment. You haven't built that on your benchtop,
I am sure.

You're right. We bought it off the shelf. Things like drill presses and
lathes and arc welders are Technology We Already Have.

And steel mills, and chemical plants, and all the other stuff of
industrial society.

We have basically squat of that in a space-ready form.



The car analogy is bogus. Plenty of companies have built cars from
scratch, and had them work in their intended operating environment.

First time out, perfectly, and with no tweaking or redesigns? Seems
unlikely.

Glad you admit that tweaking and redesign is necessary to reach
the point of a technology being 'available'.

Now, how many runs have you made of your apparatus in space?



Noone has ever operated industrial processing machinery in space.

Non sequitur.

Wrong.



Do we even have the technology for long-term operation on the moon
or mars at outposts? For example, do we have spacesuits and airlock
doors that can last on the moon past a few weeks (in the face of
damage from lunar regolith fragments)?


If "lunar regolith fragments" are a problem... then operate your doors
in such a fashion that this damage does not occur.

Handwaving.


How about heat dissipation?

They're called "radiators."

More handwaving. Remember, I was critiquing your silliness about
simply moving terrestrial equipment into space. 'Radiators' on
terrestrial heat engines (really air heat exchangers) won't work
in vacuum.



Radiation susceptibility?

It's called "dirt."

Ah, our bulldozers and the like will operate buried in dirt.
Gotcha.



of the fluids and fluid handling systems with the vacuum and temperature
extremes of space?


Don't expose your fluids to vacuum. Keep your temperatures fairly
constant.

Ah. Not only will our bulldozers and the like be buried in dirt,
they'll be inside pressure vessels. Gotcha^2.


(more handwaving deleted)

Paul