Mining that 20 trillion dollar rock in space ( mining an asteroid part XXVIII)

7/27/26:

Much is made of Elon Musk's wealth, or any other rich person. But what is wealth but the relative lack of some good thing? If everything becomes abundant, then what would be wealth? Then, it would be hard to be envious when there is nothing good that is in short supply. Envy is an odd thing. It may matter more to the envious that you don't have a thing, than for the envious one to have it himself. Envious people seem more worried about people having things than in people not having things.

8/16/15:

Previous

One of the ideas I had was along the line indicated by the title of this post.

When I left off with that series, I came up with an idea of using an Iron Man suit for life support.  This suit would reduce the weight requirements, as the shielding would only cover the human body, which is much smaller than an entire spacecraft.  You could get pretty good shielding for relatively little weight.

Now, another idea popped up.  Instead of using a space sail, use a VASIMIR concept.  This would require a large solar array, which could be built like the solar sail mentioned in the series.  This would be much, much smaller in scope, however, and therefore, much easier to build.  You could build one that would capture up to 90% of the heat energy being lost, and then recycle it again and again in order to give a multiplier effect.

Let's say you can recycle 90% of the energy lost through heat.

After one pass through, you've got 90% left.  The second would have 90% of the 90%.  The third would have 90% of the 81%, and so on and so on.

So, and equation could be derived from this relation:

x+ .9x + .81x + .729x +  0.6561x + 0.59049x + 0.531441x +  0.4782969x + 0.43046721x+0.387420489x+0.3486784401x+0.31381059609x+0.282429536481x+0.2541865828329x+0.2287679245496x+0.205891132094649x+0.1853020188851841x+0.16677181699666569x+0.150094635296999121x+0.1350851717672992089x+0.12157665459056928801x+0.109418989131512359209x, which equal to approx 9 times.

Thats about 10 times x minus 1.  If y is the percentage amount remaining after one pass through, then, we obtain the generalized equation 1/y, where y is less than 1.  Thus, 1/.9 equals 9.

You would layer some thermoelectric devices around it and pass the coolant through enough layers to obtain the amount that would be recycled.  If the coolant is a gas, it would have to pass through several layers, grabbing off a piece at each layer.  If it were a molten-salt, it would grab off a piece, then shunt the liquid to the next layer to be utilized with the layered thermoelectric devices until the cooling down is complete.  You could have many, many layers.  In space, this may present difficulties as there is no gravity.  You could spin the device, and that would shunt the materials through each layer.

Therefore, with a solar electric array that generated 1 megawatt of power, you could multiply that by 9 in order to get 9 megawatts of power.  This could get a vehicle to Mars in a relatively short time.

But you could also get to that asteroid you are trying to mine.  Maybe you could start with Deimos.

Update:

A possible better idea for a thruster?  It is a continuation of this discussion on to the next post.  I wanted to link these together.

Yeah--- another one of these

7/26/26:

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's been awhle since I fired up the old Xbox (bought in 2020). The Truck Driver simulator is missing, but the Construction Simulator is still there. But I've run that through so many times that it is a bore, so I actually bought a newer version of it.

It seemed to be bewildering at first, but that's how the other version was too. So I stuck with it for awhile and got the hang of it. It may turn out to be easier to use than the old version. One thing is certain already. It isn't the same game.

4/20/21:

For those who are wondering why I waste time on this, well the answer is that nothing else out there is interesting enough for me. So why not do this?

Look, we've beaten the absolute hell out of the conservative issues. People won't listen. I don't know about anybody else, but beating my head against a wall doesn't interest me. If they won't listen, then I am going elsewhere.

No, I'm not giving up. But when I find something that I want to comment upon, then I'll do it. But I won't join the "woe is me" crowd. Sure, things are bad. But when people get in the mood to listen, you may have better luck than right now.

This video is a continuation of what I posted yesterday. I wasn't satisfied with what I did. Maybe this will explain the issue with the Construction Simulator 3 on Xbox.

You know, I'll never forget my old dad..

Young Frankenstein

Eye-Gore gives a little of his own folk wisdom..

"Unbelievable" plane

Not the deltoid pumpkinseed. P.S.: I thought it might, but it doesn't really compare.

This is supposed to be much more efficiently operated plane that can change its economics.

Flight 13 of Starship

Looks really good. The Starship itself did not blow up when it made a soft landing in the Indian Ocean off Australia. However, the booster looks like it came in a bit too hot.

One more test flight of the booster should get the rest of the issues corrected. The Ship got a good relight, so the next flight should see a once around for the ship, meaning an orbital flight is likely on the schedule.

Too early to say too much about the next flight, but things are getting pretty interesting.

Update a few hours later:

Thanks to this video, it can be seen what likely went wrong, but not necessarily why. A narrator said that 13 engines would fire up at the last part of the descent of the booster. That didn't happen. Instead, several engines did not fire up, with at least 4 that didn't relight at all. One relit, but went out immediately. That leaves about 8 that did relight and stay that way. This may explain why it came down too hard and too fast. One more thing:More engines went out right at the end.

Next day:Doesn't it seem to be in the same area of the booster which didn't light up on July 16th launch abort? 4 engines didn't light up on that day, and it looks like a couple of the same engines failed to light up on the final approach after launching on the 24th.

Compare this with the Urbee

The Urbee is the car I forgot about.

Mike Steger Explains Why U.S-Canada Trade Conflict Represents Much More

CTH

Posts like this is why CTH may be the only information source worth reading anymore.

If more people understood what was at stake, Trump's approval numbers would go through the roof. As it stands, neither the Democrats nor their willing accomplices in the media, are doing Americans any favors.

Know what I mean, Vern?