How to Colonize
an Asteroid
How to Colonize
an Asteroid
Begin assembly of the electrodes by lining all five jars up on the base. Make sure that they are evenly spaced. Set the electrode support into the slots in the ends and make a small mark at the center point of each jar. Remove the electrode support rail from the base and lie it on a flat surface. Using a square, draw lines across the support at each of the five marks.
Select one of the steel electrodes to use as a marking guide. Align the inside edge of the notch in the electrode with the line you just drew across the support. Align the bottom edge of the notch with the bottom edge of the rail, and draw a dot where the mounting hole should go. Flip the electrode over and repeat the procedure on the other side of the vertical line.
When you have all ten holes marked, drill them out with a drill bit just slightly larger than your mounting bolts.
After drilling the holes, cut 5 pieces of #18 or
#24 wire. Strip about 1/4 inch of insulation from both ends of the wire.
Crimp and solder a round lug to one end of each wire, then pass the other
end through the small hole in the back of one of the copper electrodes and
solder the stripped portion to the copper face, as shown in the image to
the left. Repeat this for each of the five copper electrodes. NOTE: before
soldering wire to the copper, be sure that it is clean. You can scrub it
with fine sandpaper or a green scrub pad, or you can clean it with a kitchen
copper cleaner (the same stuff used to polish the bottoms of copper cooking
pans). If the copper is not shiny and clean you will never get the solder
to stick. The solder should flow onto the surface of the copper easily, and
you need to use as little solder as is possible to firmly attach the wire.
Do not attach any wires to the steel electrodes.
Once you have
wires soldered to all five, bolt them to the electrode support with the copper
side facing toward the center. You need to put one in the left most of each
pair of holes you drilled (above) in the electrode support. Be sure to use
washers on both sides of the bolt. For now, leave the wires draped over the
top of the electrode support.
© 1999, Robert Lyon Richards