How exactly do you control a megaton-size hunk of metal flying through the air at 10,000+ m/s? You can direct its course away from populated areas, but that's about it. The reason most metallic meteors survive is precisely because they are small- the drag deceleration exerted on an object is roughly inversely proportional to its size, because inertia goes up with r^3 while surface area (and hence drag) only goes up with r^2.
- Tom --- Lúcio de Souza Coelho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 6/15/07, Tom McCabe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > (...) > > Also, simply crashing an asteroid onto the planet > will > > vaporize all the ore and scatter it for dozens of > > kilometers in every direction. > (...) > > I talked about a controlled crash, where dispersion > and vaporization > would tend to be minimized. I don't think it is > impossible, for we > have seen a great number of metallic meteors hitting > the ground and > still remaining relatively preserved. And that in > uncontrolled > conditions... > > By the way, although I ultimately agree with you > that mining the Moon > is difficult (it is the "slag pile of Solar System", > using Zubrin's > words), I wouldn't discard the possibility that some > crater bottoms > have high concentrations of many minerals - > specially metals. Remnants > of the asteroid impacts that created them. However, > so far this is > just a conjecture, while in the case of asteroids we > already have a > wealth of data supporting the view that mining them > will be much > easier. > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
