Grayson orbital industry.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

SWM wrote:...
Grayson had mining operations out in the comets. They had access to plenty of CHNO.

On a tonnage basis, probably so, plus elemental hydrogen from Uriel. But you can bet that the best source is still planetary simply based on "freighter down with foodstuffs, freighter back up with "food fuel". Even if that food fuel is mostly in the form of gadzooks worth of frozen CO2. vs. chasing down and mining comets. I'd imagine that over a period of time, the Grayson's "agricultural commission" will have figured out what major elements are needed in what amounts(calcium being likely a major one) and the potash bunch, etc. that they need for the space born farms that isn't being um, spread by the orbiting cows..., and replenish that from best sources, asteroid, orbital, processed sewage, chicken eggshells, or whatever. Nature sort of takes care of the rest if the humans get those balances within strike range of optimally correct.

Echoes of Honor, Chapter 3 wrote:But Grayson—and, for that matter, Yeltsin's asteroid belts, as well—are lousy in heavy metals . . . and fissionables.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:As for the rest of that, people already said that the organisms and such can come from the other existing orbital farms. Only the first farm needs to have that stuff decontaminated and hauled from the surface.

There is also the point that "soil" from asteroids, comets, and other orbital habitats doesn't need decontamination; anything lifted from the planet does need decontamination.

Whatever chemical transformations are required to turn CHON into fertilizer, soil, and habitat structure would be small potatoes when compared to the cost of decontaminating and lifting the same elements from the surface.

tlb wrote:The question I have (in line with the recent post from Vince), is why wouldn't the material from asteroids need decontamination? Is the planet abnormal compared to its system or is it more likely that the entire system is loaded with heavier metals?

Brigade XO wrote:snip... Human sewage (processed or not) would be a reasonable source of that material. You would have to process it at some point, if for nothing more than to kill pathogens that would othewise infect your growing medium (both hydroponic and "dirt" on the farms.

snip...
I can't imagine a place like Grayson just taking millions of tons of the raw sewage and dumping it out into un-domed places. They really do need a place to put it. They have to work too hard to decontaminate planitary materials in the first place to throw away or recontaminate (with Grayson heavy metals etc) "human effluent".

George J. Smith wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:snip... Human sewage (processed or not) would be a reasonable source of that material. You would have to process it at some point, if for nothing more than to kill pathogens that would othewise infect your growing medium (both hydroponic and "dirt" on the farms.

snip...
I can't imagine a place like Grayson just taking millions of tons of the raw sewage and dumping it out into un-domed places. They really do need a place to put it. They have to work too hard to decontaminate planitary materials in the first place to throw away or recontaminate (with Grayson heavy metals etc) "human effluent".

I would assume that human waste is recycled on the planet, after all there is textev that they recycle the "dead" to maintain their farms.

tlb wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:There is also the point that "soil" from asteroids, comets, and other orbital habitats doesn't need decontamination; anything lifted from the planet does need decontamination.

Whatever chemical transformations are required to turn CHON into fertilizer, soil, and habitat structure would be small potatoes when compared to the cost of decontaminating and lifting the same elements from the surface.

The question I have (in line with the recent post from Vince), is why wouldn't the material from asteroids need decontamination? Is the planet abnormal compared to its system or is it more likely that the entire system is loaded with heavier metals?