Above: The Moon is shown glowing from the heat of the asteroid and comet impacts that shaped its surface. Of course, these impacts were scattered over time, but concentrated in the Moon’s first billion years. Yet these impacts continue to this day, at a greatly reduced pace. While there have been relatively few articles on asteroids and comets in the pages of MMM over the years, their significance for the Moon’s future is as great as it has been for the Moon’s past. There is a good sampling of asteroidal materials mixed into the Moon’s rock powder surface blanket, 2-5 yards/~meters thick, and of comets as well, in the icy deposits to be found in north and south polar craters that have seen no sunlight for eons. Asteroids and comets are thus logical sources of the rare elements we find in the “regolith” blanket but in insufcient amounts to meet the Lunar Frontier’s industrial and biospheric needs. We will include articles on Phobos and Deimos, the two small moonlets of Mars, which some have felt may be captured asteroids of carbonaceous chondrite composition. If so, these two small bodies could be major sources of volatiles for the Moon. The development of these resources could conveniently piggyback on a regular and ever increasing Earth-Moon <> Mars trafc. So their collocation with Mars puts them at the top of the list for ease and regularity of access. While Earth<>Mars launch windows are 25.5 months apart, solar sails could establish a virtual pipeline from Mars to the Moon with liquid methane CH4 and ammonia NH3 always going into the “pipeline” at Mars and always coming out of the faucet at the lunar end. Comets, quite diferent in composition and origin from asteroids, are also small bodies that abound in the solar system and have in the past endowed the Moon with valuable resources. And there are “depleted” comets that pose as asteroids. So we also include them in this issue. Near Earth asteroids may be relatively nearby and require little fuel expenditure and “Delta V” to reach, but there is a double Catch-22 involved, with inconveniences that counterbalance the conveniences, and we will deal with that issue also. Some of the larger asteroids, notably Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, may someday host settlements. Their material resources and cultures will be quite diferent from those of settlements on the Moon and on Mars. But the more diversity for humanity, the better. CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX MMM THEMES: Asteroids and Comets MMM # 6 "M" is for Missing volatiles; Methane, 'Mmonia, Minimization of cost of Importing Methane, Ammonia, etc. Mars-PHOBOS-Deimos MMM # 19 Seizing the Reins of the Mars Bandwagon (excerpts) Mars: Option to Stay Telling Time on Phobos and Deimos MMM #24 Asteroid Theme Issue: colonist's Quiz on Asteroids; Ceres Pallas Vesta MMM #25 Asteroid Odds & Ends MMM #28 Asteroid Types MMM #35 Ports of Pardon Wildcatting Comet Crude Feudalism in the Asteroid Belt? Tea & Sugar Supply ships MMM #39 Oortfoam MMM #46 Footloose among the Asteroids MMM #58 “Xities” Serving Asteroid Miners; a Plethora of asteroid moonlets MMM #70 Asteroid Base Design Workshop at ISDC 1993: A Tale of 3 Asteroids: 1. Main Belt Service Center on Ceres MMM #71 Asteroid Workshop: 2. A Mining Outpost on Gaspra Astroblemes MMM #72 Asteroid Workshop 3: Mass Driver Rig on small astrochunk Why Tether Braking at Gaspra will work MMM #86 Tapping Near Earth Asteroids Reality Check MMM #153 Automatic Near Earth Asteroid Collision Monitoring MMM #160 Killer Asteroids vs. Killer Debris (Kokh) MMM #161 Killer Asteroids vs. Killer Debris (Friesen) MMM #183 Asteroid Impact Computer Simulation MMM #188 Japan’s Asteroid Sample Return MMM #189 New Genesis: Tame Asteroids, Move Planets, McGown MMM #196 Ceres: largest asteroid or mini-planet? MMM #197 Moon Base? Mars Base? Farther Out!; Challenges of Migration into the Outer Solar System MMM #204 Killer Asteroids Editorial, By Peter Kokh MMM #214 Tagging Asteroid Apophis MMM #230 Augustine Commission Recommendations Flybys of Asteroids, Mars, may help the Moon MMM #239 New Asteroid hunting telescope array in Chile Best Place to Mine Astroids on the Moon? An Asteroid Mission that makes Sense MMM #265 The Stage is Set: Mining Asteroids - or Dormant Comets? Pros & Cons - Peter Kokh SUB-THEME INDEX: MMM THEMES: ASTEROIDS ASTEROID DESCRIPTIONS MMM #25 Asteroid Odds & Ends MMM #28 Asteroid Types MMM #46 Footloose among the Asteroids MMM #58 a Plethora of asteroid moonlets MMM #71 Astroblemes ASTEROID RESOURCES & USES MMM #24 Asteroid Theme Issue: colonist's Quiz on Asteroids; MMM #35 Ports of Pardon Feudalism in the Asteroid Belt? Tea & Sugar Supply ships MMM #86 Tapping Near Earth Asteroids Reality Check MMM #239 Best Place to Mine Astroids on the Moon? An Asteroid Mission that makes Sense ASTEROIDS SETTLEMENTS MMM #46 Footloose among the Asteroids MMM #58 “Xities” Serving Asteroid Miners; a Plethora of asteroid moonlets MMM #197 Moon Base? Mars Base? Farther Out: Challenges of Migration into the Outer Solar System MAJOR ASTEROIDS Ceres: MMM #24 MMM #70 Asteroid Base Design Workshop at ISDC 1993: A Tale of 3 Asteroids: Main Belt Service Center on Ceres MMM #196 Ceres: largest asteroid or mini-planet? Pallas MMM #24 Vesta NNN #24 Gapra: MMM #71 Asteroid Workshop: A Mining Outpost on Gaspra Why Tether Braking at Gaspra will work MARS ASTEROID-LIKE MOONS: DEIMOS & PHOBOS MMM # 6 "M" is for Missing volatiles; Methane, 'Mmonia, Minimization of cost of Importing Methane, Ammonia, etc.; Mars-PHOBOS-Deimos MMM # 19 Seizing the Reins of the Mars Bandwagon (excerpts); Telling Time on Phobos and Deimos ASTEROID TRANSPORTATION ISSUES MMM #197 Moon Base? Mars Base? Farther Out!; Challenges of Migration into the Outer Solar System NEAR EARTH ASTEROID THREATS MMM #86 Tapping Near Earth Asteroids Reality Check MMM #153 Automatic Near Earth Asteroid Collision Monitoring MMM #160 Killer Asteroids vs. Killer Debris (Kokh) MMM #161 Killer Asteroids vs. Killer Debris (Friesen)_ MMM #204 Killer Asteroids Editorial, By Peter Kokh MMM #214 Tagging Asteroid Apophis MMM #230 Augustine Commission Recommendations Flybys of Asteroids, Mars, may help the Moon COMETS MMM #35 “Wildcatting Comet Crude” p. 4 MMM #39 Oortfoam PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AMONG THE ASTEROIDS MMM # 6 "M" is for Missing volatiles; Methane, 'Mmonia, Minimization of cost of Importing Methane, Ammonia, etc. Mars-PHOBOS-Deimos MMM #35 Ports of Pardon; Wildcatting Comet Crude; Feudalism in the Asteroid Belt?; Tea & Sugar Supply ships MMM #58 “Xities” Serving Asteroid Miners; a Plethora of asteroid moonlets MMM #70 Asteroid Base Design Workshop at ISDC 1993: A Tale of 3 Asteroids: 1. Main Belt Service Center on Ceres MMM #71 Asteroid Workshop: 2. A Mining Outpost on Gaspra MMM #86 Tapping Near Earth Asteroids Reality Check MMM #239 Best Place to Mine Astroids on the Moon? MMM #265 The Stage is Set: Mining Asteroids - or Dormant Comets? Pros & Cons MMM #6 June 1987 M IS FOR MISSING VOLATILES: The Moon, as compared to our bountiful Earth, is very poor in elements with low boiling points, especially hydrogen (and thus water), nitrogen, and carbon (volatile in its usual form as carbon monoxide and/or carbon dioxide.) Other relatively volatile elements, like sodium and phosphorus, for examples, while present in usable and probably sufcient quantities, are less abundant than on Earth. This volatile depletion is one of the tests to which any theory of the Moon's origin must be put. More importantly, this depletion sets constraints on what is economically possible on the Moon. 1. Any Lunar civilization must import the bulk of the hydrogen (barring polar permashade ice fields*), carbon, and nitrogen it needs for biomass and life-support. 2. Such a civilization must seek to find inorganic substitutes for non-life related uses to which these elements are put on Earth: wood, paper, plastics, coatings, adhesives, oil, and grease, etc. [This was written eleven years before the exciting confirmation by the Lunar Prospector orbiting geochemical mapper that such polar ice reserves do, in fact, exist. But even at "billions of tons" this is a very limited resource which must be used wisely only for recyclable purposes. - Ed.] M is for METHANE & 'MMONIA: poetic license) The easiest way to ship the missing volatiles is to combine them as methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) which are easier to liquefy and handle than liquid hydrogen, especially. But any excess needed hydrogen* would have to be imported in the pure form. (Some hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid might be shipped to co-import any needed chlorine -- to combine with Lunar sodium to make salt -- and fluorine. Both may be needed to endow recycling ore extraction processes.) To increase import efciency to 100%, containers can be used which are made exclusively of elements the Moon needs to import. Such usable "tare" could be of metal, like copper, or of easily reduced solid hydro-carbons like polypropylene, (-CH(CH3)CH2-)^n. *[Actually, of H, C, and N, it is Nitrogen which will probably be in shortest supply in comparison to the amounts we will need, solely as a bufer gas used with oxygen for breathable "air". Nitrogen can be conserved by reducing the interior air pressure to half sea- level normal, but with the same amount or partial pressure of oxygen, reduced nitrogen accounting for all of the reduced air pressure. If indeed this shortage does turn out to be critical, it will be a strong incentive to keep ceilings low, thus reducing the cubic volume of air needed per square foot of inhabited space. Goodbye visions of high-domed megastructures for the time being! - Editor.] M IS FOR MINIMIZATION OF THE COST OF IMPORTING METHANE, AMMONIA, HYDROGEN, ETC.