From: earlcp@idirect.com   
      
   cray74@hotmail.com (Mike Miller) :   
      
   > 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?   
   >   
   > Mike Miller, Materials Engineer   
      
   Foam Metal or hollow shapes.  If you aerobrake an metal object with a low   
   average density, you can send pure raw stock down to land near the processing   
   plant.  Since the metal feedstock to the Earth-side plant is already   
   processed, it will take a lot less energy per pound/kilo of output compared   
   to processing ore, and the pure metal feedstock will also cut out a lot of   
   the pollution normally generated.   
      
                     Earl Colby Pottinger   
      
      
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