From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   cray74@hotmail.com (Mike Miller) writes:   
      
   > Hypothetically...   
   >   
   > You've captured your stony-iron asteroid and parked it at the   
   > Earth-moon L4 point. You've got mines and smelters producing tens of   
   > megatons of refined metal annually, enough to meet a noticeable   
   > fraction of Earth's demand for metals. The endless bounty of the space   
   > is within humanity's grasp.   
   >   
   > So...How do you land megatons of metal annually without resorting to   
   > beanstalks, tethers, or anti-gravity? Just aerobrake big ingots and   
   > let them drop into the ocean or an artificial receiver lake?   
      
   One probably wouldn't use "big ingots," but aerobraking is not unreasonable.   
   One could either foam the metal or form it into a wide flat cone to increase   
   its frontal area per unit mass, so that it would decelerate at high altitude   
   without need for (much) ablative shielding (and if ablative shielding proved   
   necessary, it could be cheaply made out of slag). And since there is nothing   
   particularly "delicate" about a load of bulk refined metal, it might indeed   
   not be unreasonable to allow it to simply splash down at terminal velocity   
   in a large lake.   
      
      
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