From: mikecombs@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti.retro.com   
      
   "Mike Miller"  wrote in message   
   news:5dcb47db.0404271220.2edbd6ec@posting.google.com...   
   >   
   > 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?   
      
   I've heard one interesting proposal: foam the steel and shape it into   
   enormous lifting bodies.  Make it light enough, and it would even float once   
   dumped in the drink.   
      
   Since foamed steel was first proposed as a 0-G industry, other Earth-bound   
   solutions like honeycomb-structure composites have sort of made it   
   irrelevant.  But maybe such an idea might be worthwhile if only for this   
   specific application.   
      
   It would surprise me if one couldn't make ablative heat shields from slag.   
      
   --   
      
      
   Regards,   
   Mike Combs   
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------   
   We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the   
   best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the   
   Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.   
   Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is   
   "somewhere else entirely."   
      
      Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)