Re:NASA not ready for dangers of deep space, auditors say
by anigbrowl on Monday November 23, 2015 @02:27PM
(#10616661)
What goods would you expect to retrieve from Mars? Or do you mean that it would be a great place to locate industry that would create unacceptably high pollution on earth?
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Re:NASA not ready for dangers of deep space, auditors say
by Retric on Monday November 23, 2015 @02:49PM
(#10616821)
In theory, you send one von Neumann machine and in a few years it has a planets worth of manufacturing to send you anything you want. Sure, shipping would be energy intensive, and you only get ~59% as much solar energy to work with. However, the equivalent of a 2 million meter x 2 million meter solar farm could produce a lot of energy.
Assuming space elevators, you could replace the vast majority of earth manufacturing. Though, with a long lag time before arrival.