3 ms·
It might not be so hard to do because space is such a good insulator. You could get two chunks spinning on a tether and use a solar pumped laser to heat them.
by __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
It might not be so hard to do because space is such a good insulator. You could get two chunks spinning on a tether and use a solar pumped laser to heat them. It would be a sort of melting-point chromoatograph where you'd get different materials melting out at different times. Cooling the collected material would be expensive, but you'd end up with most of the gold all together in one stratum of the result.
- lightedman 2y ago"It would be a sort of melting-point chromoatograph where you'd get different materials melting out at different times." In geology, we do something incredibly similar called the Bowens Reaction Series. Take a bunch of stuff, melt it and cool it, watch what precipitates and crystallizes from the melt in order to determine the overall composition.
- kadoban 2y ago> Cooling the collected material would be expensive Can't you just throw it in the shade and wait? Space is an excellent insulator, but radiation cooling still happens. Just let it sit there for a few weeks/months and you're all set, right?
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI think you're right. I've been thinking in terms of vehicles with habitats, where the conductive heating would eventually be a problem. But this is just a few buckets on a cable, the whole assembly can stay at molten-metal temperatures for weeks without hurting anything.