Fuel as Cargo
- Thread starter DanDare
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
You have access to pumps, a dirty great heat source, and environment controls.
Distil the local water and fill your hold with water at 277K - it's maximum density.
Distil the local water and fill your hold with water at 277K - it's maximum density.
Looking at the Deep Impact experiment I would be thinking more along the lines of a telescoping articulated arm with a grav floor plate on it. Reach out to the "snow" turn on the grav floor plate and all this loose stuff sticks to it and then stuff the snow into a cargo bay, close the doors add atmosphere add heat suck up the water, dry the air and pump the room back to vacuum. And repeat, getting about 5% of the hold's volume in water per cycle and each cycle is in the hours, not minutes scale.
Solid ice is another matter, grappling arm for small enough pieces to grab and move, then you have issues like the thing shatters when you try to move it, or it's too big to fit and it will not break where and when you need it to break. cutting , drilling and blasting are not going to be quick or safe. Belters would have home brew equipment they have made for this kind of operation, that lock themselves to the ice and then have measures like grav plates to contain the ice shards generated.
Solid ice is another matter, grappling arm for small enough pieces to grab and move, then you have issues like the thing shatters when you try to move it, or it's too big to fit and it will not break where and when you need it to break. cutting , drilling and blasting are not going to be quick or safe. Belters would have home brew equipment they have made for this kind of operation, that lock themselves to the ice and then have measures like grav plates to contain the ice shards generated.
So, Mr. Imperial Inspector Official. I'd like to license a PGMP for my Tramp Trader for the purposes of melting ice for fuel... 
In reality I am taking a wild guess that using a PGMP on a large ball of ice just might have consequences... A starship usually has enough raw power in the form of a fusion powerplant, what about heating elements connected by power cable to the ship? Dagnabit, now I'm scouring teh interwebz learning physics of melting ice, dang you, educational game. Just how cold would a comet surface or asteroid ice chunk be?
In reality I am taking a wild guess that using a PGMP on a large ball of ice just might have consequences... A starship usually has enough raw power in the form of a fusion powerplant, what about heating elements connected by power cable to the ship? Dagnabit, now I'm scouring teh interwebz learning physics of melting ice, dang you, educational game. Just how cold would a comet surface or asteroid ice chunk be?
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
So, Mr. Imperial Inspector Official. I'd like to license a PGMP for my Tramp Trader for the purposes of melting ice for fuel...
Your license application has been reviewed and stamped Rejected citizen.
Now unofficially, between you and I, do what every Belter does, strap a low power mining laser to your seeker or whatever.
I am not an Imperial Judge or advocate, you should not take my suggestion as anything but that.
Good luck citizen.
Annnd we're back to this so I'll bite, I'm guessing explosive things. Hmm what if the beam was spread?
If you're unlucky, the lens would reflect the laser back onto your own ship.
ok I have done the reading assignment thanks, the only thing that may be a problem is that the comets may have several to several dozen meters of loose aggregates from our one comet surface we "probed" with a 100kg impactor.
resulting in one glimpse of the composition. from the wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)
"Initial results were surprising as the material excavated by the impact contained more dust and less ice than had been expected. The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous ones which had comets as loose aggregates of material. In addition, the material was finer than expected; scientists compared it to talcum powder rather than sand.[41] Other materials found while studying the impact included clays, carbonates, sodium, and crystalline silicates which were found by studying the spectroscopy of the impact.[15] Clays and carbonates usually require liquid water to form and sodium is rare in space.[42] Observations also revealed that the comet was about 75% empty space, and one astronomer compared the outer layers of the comet to the same makeup of a snow bank.[15] Astronomers have expressed interest in more missions to different comets to determine if they share similar compositions or if there are different materials found deeper within comets that were produced at the time of the Solar System's formation."
So while it's not loose stuff all the way through, it is not likely to be sealed. you will insert the probe, seal it at the entrance and apply heat... the ices will move out from that point and redeposit elsewhere in the body of the comet, leaving an area of clay and silicate in a fine talcum powder like substance that if you get hot enough will fuze. You will be able to get some ices with this method, but not as much as if you had a solid ice body you were probing.
TL/DR looks like comets are not good for the mosquito rig form of mining.
resulting in one glimpse of the composition. from the wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)
"Initial results were surprising as the material excavated by the impact contained more dust and less ice than had been expected. The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous ones which had comets as loose aggregates of material. In addition, the material was finer than expected; scientists compared it to talcum powder rather than sand.[41] Other materials found while studying the impact included clays, carbonates, sodium, and crystalline silicates which were found by studying the spectroscopy of the impact.[15] Clays and carbonates usually require liquid water to form and sodium is rare in space.[42] Observations also revealed that the comet was about 75% empty space, and one astronomer compared the outer layers of the comet to the same makeup of a snow bank.[15] Astronomers have expressed interest in more missions to different comets to determine if they share similar compositions or if there are different materials found deeper within comets that were produced at the time of the Solar System's formation."
So while it's not loose stuff all the way through, it is not likely to be sealed. you will insert the probe, seal it at the entrance and apply heat... the ices will move out from that point and redeposit elsewhere in the body of the comet, leaving an area of clay and silicate in a fine talcum powder like substance that if you get hot enough will fuze. You will be able to get some ices with this method, but not as much as if you had a solid ice body you were probing.
TL/DR looks like comets are not good for the mosquito rig form of mining.
We have an exceedingly small sample size of actual surfaces we have landed probes on: The Moon, and Mars and what else, an impact on one comet. We lack data on what will be found on the surfaces of asteroids. There are many variables including the dew line: (the solar system has many such dew lines for different chemical species, such that we get zones where metals aggregate, then carbon containing compounds then ices and so forth. the oot cloud is far enough out that He and H2 ices may exist on the asteroids and planets there) The dew line is defined as the distance from the sun that the net of water ice deposited from the solar wind exceeds the outgassing of water ice due to solar radiation. Previous orbits that may have been in one of the other zones creating a chimera of an asteroid, covered in ices but having a metallic core.
We have also landed probes on the surfaces of Venus and Titan, and we have landed on asteroids: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010213.html .
We have also impacted Mercury. ( http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/overview-of-messenger-spacecrafts-impact-region-on-mercury ).
We have landed on or impacted Mars, Venus, Luna, Titan, one comet and one asteroid. We have also collected data spectroscopically on cometary comae on dozens of comets.
We have close up fly-by imaging on dozens of moons, and about half a dozen asteroids, all 4 ice giants, and one KBO/Dwarf Planet.
We actually have surprisingly good set of data on what comets are made of; the data is lacking in certain details. Every comet so far outgasses mostly the same stuff. Water, Ammonia, Methane, dust particles.
It may take shovelling to get it; head out and cut & move 1/2 ton blocks of stuff into the airlock, close the airlock, heat the airlock, capture the ougassing and tank it, sweep out the dust remaining. Repeat.
T5.09, p.297,:
Fuel Bin, KCr 100, 1 ton TL 8 intake 20 tons of ice an hour, accept ice solids
Fuel purifier, 1 MCr, convert to fuel at rate of intake
Granted, there is more blue collar poetry in you description than in Canon.
have fun
Selandia
Is it worth considering for game purposes? 1 hundred million years? 100 billions of people are not scooping it up. Corporation utilities are to supply the masses and ships are regularly refueling.
A single small gas giant is hundreds of times the size of Earth. Without studying gas production in each gas giant (a discussion beyond our present tech) within the 3I fantasy map it is difficult to address.
For that matter, we must also reconsider "waterless" systems. Simply because freestanding water is not present does not mean it cannot be produced and must be shipped in.
probably not. but one can't help noticing it.
might play a role in special cases. consider desert worlds - they will not allow unfettered depletion of their water resources for centuries. perhaps there are "terrorist" movements dedicated to destroying the world's tiny starport. perhaps visiting travellers have no idea why the local refinery always is being blown up. "ah geez, there it goes again. what do they have against space travel anyway? backward isolationists."
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
While the game tells us the fuel is "used" or "burned", what it doesn't talk about is the exhaust from this use.
If burned, it becomes water again. Thrust out the the back, eventually collectors will clean up those microscopic ice crystals.
If fused in a fusion reaction, it can still be recovered and recycled. It really depends on what "used" means. Is jump fuel thrust into jump space? Where does it come out, does it come out? What happens with the fuel when it is used?
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