Strategy for mining an asteroid, part XXIV

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Good news and bad news.  The bad news was reported earlier today.  The good news is that tungsten is better than lead for shielding, plus less toxicity.  The coffins can be made smaller and lighter.

An idea just flashed in my mind.  What if you made an Iron Man spacesuit made of graphene and tungsten?  It could give some radiation protection and could be pressurized when necessary.  An astronaut can move about inside his Iron man suit and not have to be confined to his coffin.

Tungsten is has a half thickness of about half that of lead.  So, 1 cm of lead would provide 50% shielding, whereas .5 cm of tungsten could do the same.  Now if that much tungsten could somehow be woven into a fabric with graphene as a base...  Just brainstorming, here....  The goal would be protection with some flexibility for easier movement.

The Iron Man suit would have sheets of tungsten that would fit over each other in a smooth way so as to allow movement.  Inside the tungsten outer shell, an inner shell of pressurized graphene would finish the suit.  The human body requires atmospheric pressure, that's what the graphene inner shell accomplishes.

Back to the bad news.  It seems that 3554 Amun is ruled out, but not necessarily 1986 DA, the other $20 trillion rock.  3554 Amun delta v is over 10 km/sec, while 1986 DA is around 7 km/sec.  That's slightly more than a Mars rendezvous from LEO.  It's more of a challenge, but 1986 DA could still support a Mars colony as indicated in an earlier post.

There's going to be a need for propellant after all.  I was thinking we might get around that altogether, but that may not be in the cards.  If we are going to need propellant, then we definitely need in situ resourcing.  Proponents say it is a game-changer.  I'd say so.  If you can fill up at numerous locations instead of having to carry it all in one shot, it does simplify things enormously.

A light weight protective suit may help with propellant type missions as well.  The goal, besides mining asteroids, is to be able to stay in space for long periods.  The suit can help with that objective, too.  The idea of making very large stations still makes the mass problem too large to solve reasonably.  Thus, if you can protect astronauts with a minimum of mass, all the better.  For example, let's say you want to make a sphere of 1 cubic mile of air as a radiation shield.  The calculations for the amount of gas need give a prohibitively large number ( 1 cu mile of oxygen masses at 6,056,144,310 kg !!!) even for the mass of the gas in that proposition.  No large structures are going to be possible.  You need small structures, like a space suit.

Update:

It might have something like the look of medieval armor.  A chain mail exterior made of tungsten over a carbon fiber body that can be pressurized.  The inside of the carbon fiber could be a graphene pressurized covering that pushes against the carbon fiber body and the skin.  The loosely fitting chain mail could allow freedom of movement, while the carbon fiber body could be shaped into human form without adding too much mass nor be too restrictive in bodily movements.


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