Asteroid Miner
Added 2018-08-01 15:49:59 +0000 UTCAttached are files showing the development of this peice.
Comments
Yes and no. Asteroids, after all, are basically loose gravel and dust held together via ice, if not loose gravel directly without ice. They have enough gravitational force to keep together, but only as far as they don't get too close to another astral body. And a powerful laser would be something bulky, but would need not be wide, in fact wide would be the opposite of powerful. There being no air means the dust is going to spray radially from the blast point. And while boring down means the arc will eventually engulf the ship. So basically all you need is a small dome to contain the spread of dust as the laser zips here and there, and not dig too far down. Probably men could work right besides the laser blasts that are vaporizing the ice and all you'd have to clean would be the suits of the miners. In fact fine tune the laser enough and you could zap the miners clean by vaporizing the water that is making the dust cling to their suits before they re-enter.
Simone Spinozzi
2018-08-03 05:39:41 +0000 UTCGotta keep that dust under control though. Maybe wrap the asteroid up in plastic?
Alex
2018-08-03 03:22:01 +0000 UTCNice! I always thought they would use lasers to crack the ice and explode chunks and bits of asteroid away since they would be unable to bring and resupply charges, and also the ice is good for ion propellant and water/oxygen for those pesky biological things you need to ferry around. 🤣👍
Simone Spinozzi
2018-08-02 07:17:56 +0000 UTC
