Re: SPACE

Forrest Bishop (forrestb@ix.netcom.com)
Sat, 03 Jan 1998 02:23:05 -0800


Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> forrestb@ix.netcom.com (Forrest Bishop) writes:
>
> > Damien Broderick wrote:
> > >
> > >The sensible versions I've read use solar mirrors to melt asteroid metals
> > >in situ, then railgun standardised ingots to a relay station at one of the
> > >earth-moon libration points, for redirection to earth (after, perhaps,
> > >reshaping into lifting bodies). Still pretty scary.
> >
> > Where have you read this (besides my proposal)?
>
> One method was used in Hamilton's _The Neutronium Alchemist_ (the
> sequel to _The Reality Dysfunction_; some rather interesting
> transhuman/biotech ideas together with space opera and an utterly
> absurd menace). Ores are refined in space and turned into foam metal,

What I refer to is the space transportation network ("Interworld Rapid
Transit
System"). Afaik it is the first such proposal,
not counting science fiction (these are not backed up with any
engineering).

Forrest