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Old June 1st 06, 02:23 AM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.space.history,sci.space.station
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Default ...Lesson for Nasa! US Airmail and Aviation

In sci.space.policy Henry Spencer wrote:

For example, I see no mention of the problem of keeping the collection
system free of barnacles and other sea life, a problem that's never been
fully solved even for ships.

Bear in mind that we're talking about doing chemical processing on an
enormous scale. To get 30 TW-yr worth of U-235 per year, assuming
complete recovery of U-235 from natural uranium, would require complete
extraction of the uranium content of about a cubic kilometer of seawater
per *minute*. I'm not aware of any chemical process -- not even
purification of drinking water -- which has ever been done on anything
like that scale.


The trick is growing the right kind of sponge as the filtration medium ;-)

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++