Mining In Space

On December 10, 1986 the Greater New York Section of the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the
engineering section of the New York Academy of Sciences
jointly presented a program on mining the planets. Speakers were
Greg Maryniak of the Space Studies Institute (SSI) and Dr. Carl
Peterson of the Mining and Excavation Research Institute of
M.I.T.
Maryniak spoke first and began by commenting that the
quintessential predicament of space flight is that everything
launched from Earth must be accelerated to orbital velocity.
Related to this is that the traditional way to create things in
space has been to manufacture them on Earth and then launch them
into orbit aboard large rockets. The difficulty with this
approach is the huge cost-per-pound of boosting anything out of
this planet’s gravity well. Furthermore, Maryniak noted, since
(at least in the near to medium term) the space program must
depend upon the government for most of its funding, for this
economic drawback necessarily translates into a political
problem.
Maryniak continued by noting that the early settlers in
North America did not attempt to transport across the Atlantic
everything then needed to sustain them in the New World. Rather
they brought their tools with them and constructed their
habitats from local materials. Hence, he suggested that the
solution to the dilemma to which he referred required not so
much a shift in technology as a shift in thinking. Space, he
argued, should be considered not as a vacuum, totally devoid of
everything. Rather, it should be regarded as an ocean, that is,
a hostile environment but one having resources. Among the
resources of space, he suggested, are readily available solar
power and potential surface mines on the Moon and later other
celestial bodies as well.
The Moon, Maryniak stated, contains many useful materials.
Moreover, it is twenty-two times easier to accelerate a payload
to lunar escape velocity than it is to accelerate the identical
mass out of the EarthUs gravity well. As a practical matter the
advantage in terms of the energy required is even greater
because of the absence of a lunar atmosphere. Among other things
this permits the use of devices such as electromagnetic
accelerators (mass drivers) to launch payloads from the MoonUs
surface.
Even raw Lunar soil is useful as shielding for space
stations and other space habitats. At present, he noted,
exposure to radiation will prevent anyone for spending a total
of more than six months out of his or her entire lifetime on the
space station. At the other end of the scale, Lunar soil can be
processed into its constituent materials. In between steps are
also of great interest. For example, the MoonUs soil is rich in
oxygen, which makes up most of the mass of water and rocket
propellant. This oxygen could be RcookedS out of the Lunar soil.
Since most of the mass of the equipment which would be necessary
to accomplish this would consist of relatively low technology
hardware, Maryniak suggested the possibility that at least in
the longer term the extraction plant itself could be
manufactured largely on the Moon. Another possibility currently
being examined is the manufacture of glass from Lunar soil and
using it as construction material. The techniques involved,
according to Maryniak, are crude but effective. (In answer to a
question posed by a member of the audience after the formal
presentation, Maryniak stated that he believed the brittle
properties of glass could be overcome by using glass-glass
composites. He also suggested yet another possibility, that of
using Lunar soil as a basis of concrete.)
One possible application of such Moon-made glass would be
in glass-glass composite beams. Among other things, these could
be employed as structural elements in a solar power satellite
(SPS). While interest in the SPS has waned in this country, at
least temporarily, it is a major focus of attention in the
U.S.S. R. , Western Europe and Japan. In particular, the Soviets
have stated that they will build an SPS by the year 2000
(although they plan on using Earth launched materials. Similarly
the Japanese are conducting SPS related sounding rocket tests.
SSI studies have suggested that more than 90%, and