Re: starship-design: Raw Facts.

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/16/99 9:20:41 AM, bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca writes:

>> >            Asteroids  Moon  Mars.
>> > oil                   more    more  more
>> > land                  more    more  more
>> > metals                more    more  more
>> > low g industry  more  more  more
>> > solar           more  more  more
>> >
>> 
>> Lee
>
>Oil    - organic sludge made heated in the crust of a planet.
>Carbon & hydrogen together is rare. H & CO2 would be burned off on the
>inner
>planets
>atmospheres. Mars has CO2 but not much H.

Asteroids and comet cores are rich in carbon.  Near Earth comet cores are 
about 1/3rd oil by weight!  You could get picky and call it a hydrocarbon 
sludge, which is the more generic term for compounds like oil, but a refinery 
wouldn't know the difference.


> 
>No life on near by planets and moons.
>
>Heavy metals are fewer on the moon, because it was formed from the lighter
>elements of the earths crust, when it was formed. Any heavy stuff would
>be at
>the core.

But they are far richer in asteroids, even the ones near earth.


>Solar energy is 1/4 that of earth on Mars and 1/16 in the Asteroids.

You forget that the asteroids extend from inside earth orbit out past 
Jupiter.  MOST of them are out between Mars and Jupiter, but their are vast 
amounts closer to us, and easier to get to.

>
>Much of the metals on earth are concentrated because of Organic processes
>or transport by water. Other than a few iron-nickel planetoids you would
>have to
>sift
>through a lot of rock, for metals. Only a processing ship about that on
>the TV
>show
>"RED DWARF" would be practical.
>
>These are the facts as I see them.
>Ben

Kelly