One person trader ship

[Whipsnade]

Whipsnade put away your barbs and look at the idea for it's worth in play and approach it with that in mind, not trying to win points in an argument here...

Dial back your sense of umbrage and re-read my original post.

I brought up a long discussed problem with planetoid hulls and posted a link to another one-person trader design. I made no judgment about your design specifically.

I just think such a processed hull would be easilly mass produced using the low value metals they were not going to sell as refined metals.

I think you're wrong, especially with regards to the "easily mass produced" and "low value metals" claims. Seeing as you've totally ignored cooling issues such structures would face - we're still cooling the Hoover Dam several decades after it's cement was poured- there are many problems with your suggestion.

The idea would require a house rule regardless of which rule set you're using.

Then present it as a house rule.

I happen to agree that ICE roids would be a very tough engineering challenge...

There are no "ice"-roids of the kind people usually assume just as most planetoids are not the tough unitary structures of the kind people usually assume.

... though I do seem to recall a rather large one used in the "sky raiders" adventure series.

That recollection is faulty.

... the dew line...

The mind boggles.

 

[warwizard]

" we're still cooling the Hoover Dam several decades after it's cement was poured- there are many problems with your suggestion. "

Cement is still reacting with the Co2 in the atmosphere, with thick concrete taking decades to fully react, the reaction is exothermic hence the cooling it for 20 years effect.
Unless my metallic melt has significant radioactives it would not have continual heat generation. As the pressure is lowered the gas comes out of soloution cooling the mass of the metal and changing the pressure also has the effect of changing the temperature at which it changes from liquid to a solid, it's still hot, but now it's a solid. All I have to calculate is the watts per square meter of surface area for the black body radiation and the mass of of the hull and thermal conduction, and before too long the surface is cool enough to work on and as we tunnel out (or just open the forms we had placed inside to avoid having to tunnel) we can actively cool the interiour. If we can actively cool power systems generating 250 MW in a spacecraft, we can do the same for a cast hull. (prepositioned radiators if you insist).

The dew line is a term, meaning the point at which solar radiation is not intense enough to vaporize ice crystals in vaccuum. Hence beyond the dew line an ice asteroid will accumulate water from the solar wind instead of losing it to solar radiation.

FASA's Fate of the Sky Raiders page 19: "Instrument readings soon give an idea of the size of the gigantic ship. It measures approximately 10 km x 8 km x 7.5 km, and displaces just under 50 billion tons standard." Page 52: "More than 50% of the original ship was given over to fuel, (probably in the form of ice)." Hence my characterization as an ice asteroid.