Originally posted by sonhouse
The AM harvesters talked about would not have to be out at Jupiter but only half way to the moon, a big difference. The amount of AM stored in accelerators is more like nanograms and not likely to get much stronger ever. That is not a viable AM production technique. The only viable way so far is to harvest it in space. I think the actual cost would be less ...[text shortened]... steel, it will be possible, making access to space that much easier, no more giant flying bombs.
The AM harvesters talked about would not have to be out at Jupiter but only half way to the moon
The reason for putting them around Jupiter (specifically in Jupiter's Van Allen belts) is that AM is very scarce, and Jupiter's GIANT magnetic field acts to collect and concentrate the antimatter making it much easier to collect.
The amount of AM stored in accelerators is more like nanograms and not likely to get much stronger ever. That is not a viable AM production technique. The only viable way so far is to harvest it in space.
I am aware of this. I was saying that storing AM in magnetic bottles isn't theoretical, it is being done today, at a particle accelerator near you kind of thing.
I think the actual cost would be less than the ISS, the main hardware would be the mesh and then the much smaller internal steering and circulation equipment. The actual mass of the mesh would not have to be very high, its main job would be to support the electric field so it could theoretically be carbon nanotubes which are excellent conductors of electricity. By the time an AM harvester becomes viable for real, there will be a lot of development of materials like carbon nanotubes and such.
Calculating the cost of such a platform is extremely difficult, as you are relying on as yet undeveloped technology. It is easy to say that in the future we will have fantastically advanced technology that will make everything easy and cheap, and it might be true, we can but hope, however to get there we have to develop this technology, which is very hard and extremely expensive. Nanotubes are a very promising bit of technology, but they still have weaknesses, and can only be made at present in minuscule amounts, at great expense.
They would also make possible the space elevator, another science fiction for now technique of getting into space. But if the fiber gets to be about 100 times stronger than steel, it will be possible, making access to space that much easier, no more giant flying bombs.
Possibly, They are in individually significantly stronger than you state, however there is some significant difficulty making them with no defects (which massively reduce that strength) and coming up with a method of connecting them together in such a way as to retain that strength, they are also prone to being degraded by radiation and chemical attack, which is bad for both a space elevator and an AM collector.
Also you keep stating that you need/would want an electrically charged surface for collecting AM particles. This would be a bad idea, since an oppositely charged particles would rush towards your collecting surface and impact into it. if the particles are anti matter they will the proceed to instantly annihilate with there regular matter counterpart in your collector. This is why you want magnetic fields, which direct charged particles along field lines and into your collecting magnetic bottle. Think about the Earth's magnetic field which directs charged particles towards the poles, creating the aurora. If you replace earth with your collection station and place a collector at each pole then you have something like what I am talking about.
It is also debatable as to weather it is practical or worthwhile to do this, weather the AM yield would be worthwhile, it isn't cut and dried.