From: fmccall@earthlink.net   
      
   "Mike Combs"  wrote:   
      
   :"Fred J. McCall"  wrote in message   
   :news:i68801pgb180c7bfu07j26vqmmfu0ocjja@4ax.com...   
   :>   
   :> Except most of our industrial processes work better in the presence of   
   :> at least some gravity.  It makes a lot of things a lot more   
   :> convenient.   
   :   
   :For any industrial process where some gravity is advantageous, don't forget   
   :that a suitable substitute can be arranged for in an orbital facility by   
   :having a portion of it rotate.  On the other hand, if there are any   
   :industrial processes where 0-G was where the advantage lay, one could have   
   :that too; but couldn't have it on the lunar surface.   
   :   
   :But the latter is not the primary argument for processing in HEO over the   
   :lunar surface.  The primary arguments are the gravity well issues, and the   
   :continuous availability of sunlight in a sufficiently-high orbit.  For as   
   :long as a portion of an orbital facility can be made to rotate, there's   
   :simply no reason to abandon these significant advantages just because we   
   :need some material to settle or separate.   
      
   Except if you do the processing in HEO you have to lift all the RAW   
   material (much higher mass) from somewhere.  If you do the processing   
   on the lunar surface (using local raw materials) you're only lifting   
   the refined stuff out (at least an order of magnitude less mass to   
   lift).   
      
   :> I'd think you just chuck it into a crater from on high and then go   
   :> strip mine it out.  No 'landing it' necessary.  Little to no   
   :> atmosphere means you can use solar furnaces for smelting.   
   :   
   :For 2 weeks out of every 4.   
      
   Dig for 2, smelt for 2.   
      
   :In HEO, those solar furnaces can run 24/7.  And   
   :can be made arbitrarily large.   
      
   And now every bit of stuff you have to move to/from a furnace is an   
   orbital change.  No gravity at your furnace, so lots of 'normal'   
   separation processes won't work well.   
      
   If you dump it on the Moon, no fancy precision orbits are required.   
      
   --   
   "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar   
    territory."   
                                         --G. Behn   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)