Europe, Russia discuss 'orbital shipyard' plans

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a manufacturing
plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian materials, so you don't
have to bring as much mass up.

Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars) and
half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so solar
energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial processes.

The two-week nights are the killer.

True, but the lower gravity and high vacuum is a plus when it comes to
spacesuit design.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a manufacturing
plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian materials, so you don't
have to bring as much mass up.

Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars) and
half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so solar
energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial processes.

The two-week nights are the killer.

Equalled by the two-week days - it hasn't stopped Earth from becoming
industrialised by having a 12/12 day and it doesn't take very long to smelt
metals. Most of the equipment would be automated; just like the latest
smelting plants here on Earth, so it would be quite possible to do.

Fred J. McCall wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:

:On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:
:
: What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a manufacturing
: plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian materials, so you don't
: have to bring as much mass up.
:
:Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars) and
:half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so solar
:energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial processes.
:
:The two-week nights are the killer.
:

Start at the poles.

Where 13 day nights are the killer.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Wed, 20 May 2009 19:43:45 +0000, Derek Lyons wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:

It avoids having to develop a true heavy lift capability. You can make
small man rated rockets to lift people; and larger, higher g non-man
rated rockets for freight.

In some drug addled world where rocket costs scale with size and non man
rated boosters sufficiently reliable to trust with irreplacable billion
dollar cargoes are noticeably cheaper per lb of cargo delivered than man
rated rockets, sure.

But we don't live in that world.

D.

If you have a small payload, a tiny Russian Shtil Rocket can get you to
LEO for just $465/kg. Larger rockets DO cost more, like the Zenit 3SL
costs 5.3 k$/kg to LEO. Man rated rockets, like the space shuttle, cost
10.7 k$/kg to LEO, but that is after a US government subsidy.

http://www.futron.com/pdf/resource_center/white_papers/
FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf

(Pity you decided to ridicule facts you don't understand.)

On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 +0000, Alan Erskine wrote:

"Marvin the Martian" wrote in message
news
What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a
manufacturing plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian
materials, so you don't have to bring as much mass up.

Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars)
and half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so
solar energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial
processes.

Smelting is a process that usually involves Carbon, which the moon does
not have. You will not be doing any smelting on the moon. The launch
costs per kg to LEO alone makes the cost per kg of any material trivial
except for precious metals. Why haul carbon to smelt on the moon, when
you can bring up the same amount of finished product? You wouldn't.

The moon also has great extremes in temperature between day and night,
and the nights are 2 weeks long. Manned missions to the moon were chosen
for the small windows when their moon suits could tolerate the
temperature. It would prove difficult to work in the light of a full
lunar day.

Yes. You get 2X the solar energy on the moon than you do on Mars.

On Thu, 21 May 2009 13:28:23 +0000, Alan Erskine wrote:

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a
manufacturing plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian
materials, so you don't have to bring as much mass up.

Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars)
and half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so
solar energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial
processes.

The two-week nights are the killer.

Equalled by the two-week days - it hasn't stopped Earth from becoming
industrialised by having a 12/12 day and it doesn't take very long to
smelt metals. Most of the equipment would be automated; just like the
latest smelting plants here on Earth, so it would be quite possible to
do.

There are many metals you can smelt on Earth. You can smelt mercury, Tin,
lead, silver oxide, copper, and iron. You can't smelt aluminum, or
titanium, which makes up much of the moon.

Now, some of these metals, like mercury, tin, lead and copper; commonly
occur in ores. Volcanic activity and water takes these thinly scattered
metals and concentrates them into ore deposits. There's damn little water
on the moon, and no volcanic activity.

That leaves iron for smelting. Great! You're good to go with that, except
that carbon on the moon is dispersed in parts-per million amounts
throughout the lunar soil, and is totally useless to you. SO, you can
bring up carbon from the earth at over $3000/kg, but at that shipping
price, you might as well bring up the finished steel product itself.

Are we done with screwing around with the moon yet?

Get your ass to Mars.

On May 20, 9:40*am, wrote:
"Space bigwigs in Russia and Europe are
working on ambitious plans for an international
space shipyard in orbit above the Earth,
according to reports. The orbital shipyard
would be used to assemble manned spacecraft
capable of travelling to the Moon or Mars."

Source:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05...d_discussions/

The one and only viable location for this "orbital shipyard" is within
the Earth-moon L1 (aka Selene L1), because that's where the most
volumetric tonnage can safely coexist with the least amount of applied
energy.

~ BG

~ BG

On May 20, 10:27*am, Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Wed, 20 May 2009 09:40:29 -0700, dumpster4 wrote:
"Space bigwigs in Russia and Europe are working on ambitious plans for
an international space shipyard in orbit above the Earth, according to
reports. The orbital shipyard would be used to assemble manned
spacecraft capable of travelling to the Moon or Mars."

Source:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05...d_discussions/

I can see some logic to this. It is possible that this has advantages.

It avoids having to develop a true heavy lift capability. You can make
small man rated rockets to lift people; and larger, higher g non-man
rated rockets for freight.

On the down side, you have the difficulty of manufacturing in
microgravity and you also have to bring up the manufacturing
infrastructure.

What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a manufacturing
plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian materials, so you don't
have to bring as much mass up.

Or simply utilize our Selene L1.
~ BG

On May 21, 10:26*am, Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 +0000, Alan Erskine wrote:
"Marvin the Martian" wrote in message
news

What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a
manufacturing plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian
materials, so you don't have to bring as much mass up.

Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to Mars)
and half the gravity of Mars. *Also the Moon's closer to the Sun, so
solar energy can be used for smelting materials and industrial
processes.

Smelting is a process that usually involves Carbon, which the moon does
not have. You will not be doing any smelting on the moon. The launch
costs per kg to LEO alone makes the cost per kg of any material trivial
except for precious metals. Why haul carbon to smelt on the moon, when
you can bring up the same amount of finished product? You wouldn't.

The moon also has great extremes in temperature between day and night,
and the nights are 2 weeks long. Manned missions to the moon were chosen
for the small windows when their moon suits could tolerate the
temperature. It would prove difficult to work in the light of a full
lunar day.

Yes. You get 2X the solar energy on the moon than you do on Mars.

By all possible means, you should go to Mars and show us how it's
done, along your common sense brain dead partners Zubrin and Mook that
don't seem to care how many decades and trillions of our hard earned
loot it takes.

~ BG

On Thu, 21 May 2009 11:15:27 -0700, BradGuth wrote:


By all possible means, you should go to Mars and show us how it's done,
along your common sense brain dead partners Zubrin and Mook that don't
seem to care how many decades and trillions of our hard earned loot it
takes.

~ BG

I appreciate that you've taken time out of your very busy day posting to
yourself in your threads about planet's losing mass and flaming people
who point out that it's a trivial amount and you're a bit...
unreasonable, to come here and flame me and Dr. Zubrin and Mook, who
actually DOES stuff and you managed to convince to leave the newsgroup
with your constant immature sociopathic tendencies...

But it doesn't take trillions to start a Mars colony, and even if it did,
it would be a wonderful investment in humanity. Being that you are not
part of humanity, I can see where that would not concern you.

I was wondering, do you go around hating everyone and flaming them in
real life? Or do you just come to the usenet to act the asshole? Serious.
Either way, you have issues. Even if you are polite in the real world,
the fact that you need to come to the usenet to abuse people... I mean,
what's that about? Do you abuse puppies and kittens too, in the privacy
of your own home? What's up with this constant hateful hostility?