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  #11  
Old January 3rd 04, 06:41 PM
Paul F. Dietz
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Ruediger Klaehn wrote:

Think positive. Wouldn't that be a *huge* energy source? Correct me if I'm
wrong, but I always thought that violent volcanic eruptions are caused by
liquid rock with a lot of gases (mostly CO2) dissolved in it. The liquid
rock forms a huge subterran bubble and the gas tends to be at the top of
that bubble since it is lighter.


The magma here tends to be rather viscous, though (high in silica), so the
gas doesn't really separate from the magma.

I think magmatic gas is mostly water vapor, btw.

Paul

  #12  
Old January 4th 04, 03:19 AM
Paul F. Dietz
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Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?


We don't.

Paul

  #13  
Old January 4th 04, 03:25 AM
Martha H Adams
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That Yellowstone might be working up a bang x2500 times larger than Mt
St Helens is interesting. That this could have large national
consequences is expectable. But seems to me, the point is not that
Yellowstone is going to go bang, but that *something* is, and maybe
Yellowstone is more near the top of the list than I thought. And the
point leads to my following thesis:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it? Further space exploration is a middling good idea, but
wouldn't it be better done from places already out there, than from
down here in this gravity well?

But I can't expect that to happen: not in my life time and probably
not in yours. Because, we've recently passed through a real Asimovian
psychohistorical crisis -- and it resolved wrong.

The crisis was, forward-looking growth; vs, spending all available
money and more into military industrial armaments. That's done, now;
and now we have to spend much more money yet, trying to reduce the
resulting mess to something our children hopefully can survive with,
and maybe even our culture. For what it's worth, considering the
major faith-based elements in it. This is not at all a good picture,
but seems it me, it's what *is.*

Therefore, no space settlement because the military industrial
businesses and politicians suck it all up before it can be put to any
good use. This is a really, really sad picture. And if any of these
things like Yellowstone et al, actually happen, the picture then gets
a *lot* worse. Grump!

-- Martha Adams
  #14  
Old January 4th 04, 03:42 AM
Scott Lowther
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Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?


We don't.


Yes, we do. We just don't have the infrastructure.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
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gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address
  #15  
Old January 4th 04, 03:43 AM
Paul F. Dietz
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Scott Lowther wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?


We don't.


Yes, we do. We just don't have the infrastructure.


No, we don't. We don't have technology to extract ET resources,
to process them in space, to manufacture much of anything in space.
All of this is necessary to make settlements in space (as opposed
to very small outposts).

We have *concepts* for these, some of which have even made it
to slides. Almost all of it is vaporware.

Paul

  #16  
Old January 4th 04, 04:38 AM
Scott Lowther
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Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?

We don't.


Yes, we do. We just don't have the infrastructure.


No, we don't. We don't have technology to extract ET resources,
to process them in space, to manufacture much of anything in space.
All of this is necessary to make settlements in space (as opposed
to very small outposts).

We have *concepts* for these, some of which have even made it
to slides. Almost all of it is vaporware.


Uhh... no. Materials processing on asteroidal, lunar and planetary
surfaces follows no laws of physics not followed on Earth. And having
*built* mechanisms to do thsi sort of thing under NASA contract, I can
assure you that the technology is not only on-hand... it is rather
archaic.

There are no technologies that we know we need to have that we don't
already have. In many cases, we could modify existing terrestrial
mechanisms, all the way up to factories, to work on, say, the Moon or
Mars. They'd weigh too much and would be vastly expensive to transport;
but the technologies exist. If you want to do materials processign on
Mars, a Caterpillar bulldozer, off the shelf, could be modified to
scrape up whatever you want. Internal combustion engines, for example,
would work just dandy on Mars. You'd just need to add on liquid air
tanks. The same ore processing facilities we have on earth would work on
the moon, with modifications.


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address
  #17  
Old January 4th 04, 05:00 AM
Paul F. Dietz
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Scott Lowther wrote:

Uhh... no. Materials processing on asteroidal, lunar and planetary
surfaces follows no laws of physics not followed on Earth. And having
*built* mechanisms to do thsi sort of thing under NASA contract, I can
assure you that the technology is not only on-hand... it is rather
archaic.


You have built prototypes. You have not built machinery that would be
necessary to process material on the scale needed to construct
settlements, and you certainly haven't tested it in space. Call me lacking
in faith, but I don't believe in fairy tales of robust technologies that work
the first time they're tested.

There are no technologies that we know we need to have that we don't
already have. In many cases, we could modify existing terrestrial
mechanisms, all the way up to factories, to work on, say, the Moon or
Mars. They'd weigh too much and would be vastly expensive to transport;
but the technologies exist. If you want to do materials processign on
Mars, a Caterpillar bulldozer, off the shelf, could be modified to
scrape up whatever you want. Internal combustion engines, for example,
would work just dandy on Mars. You'd just need to add on liquid air
tanks. The same ore processing facilities we have on earth would work on
the moon, with modifications.


Yes, we have the technology, if we ignore all the parts of the technology
that wouldn't work.

Paul


  #18  
Old January 4th 04, 06:27 AM
Scott Lowther
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Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

Uhh... no. Materials processing on asteroidal, lunar and planetary
surfaces follows no laws of physics not followed on Earth. And having
*built* mechanisms to do thsi sort of thing under NASA contract, I can
assure you that the technology is not only on-hand... it is rather
archaic.


You have built prototypes.


....that worked. Thus demonstrating that the technology is there.

Just as the technology is there for a startup company to build a car
from scratch.

As I said, the only thing missing is the infrastructure.


Yes, we have the technology, if we ignore all the parts of the technology
that wouldn't work.


Such as? Be specific.


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address
  #19  
Old January 4th 04, 09:43 AM
Paul F. Dietz
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Scott Lowther wrote:

You have built prototypes.


...that worked. Thus demonstrating that the technology is there.

Just as the technology is there for a startup company to build a car
from scratch.

As I said, the only thing missing is the infrastructure.


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

The car analogy is bogus. Plenty of companies have built cars from
scratch, and had them work in their intended operating environment. Noone
has ever operated industrial processing machinery in space.

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)?


Yes, we have the technology, if we ignore all the parts of the technology
that wouldn't work.



Such as? Be specific.


You listed a number of them. Let's see about some others. (Remember,
this is in reference to moving existing terrestrial machinery into space.)

How about heat dissipation? Radiation susceptibility? Compatibility
of the fluids and fluid handling systems with the vacuum and temperature
extremes of space? Compatibility of the moving components with lunar
dust? Simple things, like *cleaning* this equipment, become
problematic if there's not an ample supply of liquid water (and an operating
environment where the water is liquid.) Controls that do not require
someone in shirtsleeves to be sitting in an non-pressure-tight cab.

It's likely that we *could* design equipment to get around these problems
(ignoring cost). However, we haven't built these bulldozers, etc., so we
do not 'have' this technology now. And showing that the new machines work
is not something that can be done beforehand.

Paul

  #20  
Old January 4th 04, 04:53 PM
Mike Rhino
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"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message
...
Martha H Adams wrote:

Aren't we being *terribly* dumb not to be doing settlements in space
*right now* seeing as we have the technology in hand to do a good
start at it?


We don't.


I think that we have the technology to develop the technology that we need.
It's just a matter of hiring engineers with a decent budget. If we started
today, I think that within 15 years, we could have a lunar settlement that
grows at a rate of 10 people a year. A settlement with 100,000 people could
take another 30 years beyond that.


 




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