Strategy for mining asteroids, part XII

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In an earlier post in this series, I put off the discussion of the Photonic Railway.  The Photonic Railway is a means of beamed propulsion.  It is postulated as a means by which we could get to the stars.  It is also useful within the solar system.

We've got plenty of reasons to go within the solar system.  Just from this one asteroid alone, 3554 Amun, is 30 times more metal than has been mined in human history.  And to think that we are ever going to run of out of this stuff!  So, to get to the asteroids will mean that we are never going to be in want of anything material that we need for survival.  Nor will we ever run out of energy as long as the sun shines.  It shines 24/7 in space.  We don't need to go outside our solar system for survival.  Just isn't necessary.

Nevertheless, there are those who would want to go.  That could be a long way off because the size of structure needed for this is going to be quite large.  You will need a terawatt of energy to make the laser powerful enough for the job.

Now, to get around the solar system, a gigawatt may do the trick.  A gigawatt is pretty big, though.  Let's say you build a solar panel that can generate that much electricity.  At 1 AU, the distance between the Earth and the Sun, solar energy is 1300 watts per square meter.  If you can convert 30% of that to electricity, that would be about 400 watts per square meter.  Take a billion and divide it by 400 and you get 2,500,000 square meters.   Take the square root of that, and you get 1581 meters on a side.  That's about a square mile.  With a spider fab, you may be able to construct a gigawatt class electrical plant in space.  It may even be possible to do that soon.

Now, combine a spider fab with materials in unlimited abundance already in space.  You see, the spider fab will require materials to work with, but these currently come from Earth.  They have to be launched from Earth's deep gravity well.  This imposes severe limitations on the size of objects that can be built, even with a spider fab.  With the materials from the asteroid, plus a spider fab, those limitations are removed.  You can make friggin' HUGE structures this way.

One of those huge structures could be the Photonic Railway.  This has the potential to get mankind to the stars.  We can start with demonstrator projects and proceed to grander and grander things.

I hope now that it can be seen that to proceed with the asteroid capture mission and visitation should go without delay.  If anything, it should be expedited.


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