Re: Air Power was: REALITY CHECK TIME!

At 11:59 AM -0400 7/26/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
>From: Ryan Gill rmgill@mindspring.com
>>And you're going to smelt these items in orbit how?
>
>Parabolic mirror to focus sunlight on them and use fractional
distillation?

That may work for some of the processes, but how then do you move the 
slag and impurities out of the liquid? Further, what about the 
casting into ingots and conversion to steel? Artificial gravity will 
help some, but one has to wonder about the quantities of water needed 
for the annealing and case hardening processes that one must go 
through to get certain surface properties.

I'm certain that you can process smaller quantities of ore, but I'd 
have to wonder if you'd be better off on at least a low gravity 
planetoid for the manufacturing process when you have need of certain 
conditions.
-- 
  Ryan Gill		 rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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