Tantalum in the real world 21st century

[ryanrulz37]

I would pretty much expect that tantalum resources on Earth have largely dried up by 2300AD. Small quantities may still be produced here and there and some more may yet be found under the oceans, but no nation is going to be building a fleet of stutterwarp capable warships from what's left on Earth.

However GDW original distribution of tantalum is fiction and a bit unrealistic, and ignored (most likely they werent aware) were most of the worlds tantalum actualy comes from. Sort of like claiming that Switzerland is a major producer of oil and that no oil is to be found in Saudi Arabia or Texas.

[Anders]

I guess 2300AD can be regarded as an "alternate geology" just as it is an "alternate history" and "alternate stellar geography".

One interesting consequence of all the tantalum mining is that the useless tantalum isotopes would be a big waste product. While the real money and power is in 180m, people will do their best to figure out how to make money from the other stuff, which will be far cheaper due to the massive mining efforts than it would otherwise be.

Tantalum does have a lot of nice properties: it is dense, ductile, very hard, corrosion resistant, easily fabricated, forms alloys, has a very high melting point and is highly conductive of heat and electricity. That suggests that the relative cheapness of waste tantalum makes it a fairly common industrial metal. I would expect it to be used in starship hulls. Carbide-graphite composites are apparently extremely hard. It is even biocompatible; one can use it for body implants.

[G. Fieendish]

Originally Posted by Anders

I guess 2300AD can be regarded as an "alternate geology" just as it is an "alternate history" and "alternate stellar geography".

One interesting consequence of all the tantalum mining is that the useless tantalum isotopes would be a big waste product. While the real money and power is in 180m, people will do their best to figure out how to make money from the other stuff, which will be far cheaper due to the massive mining efforts than it would otherwise be.

Tantalum does have a lot of nice properties: it is dense, ductile, very hard, corrosion resistant, easily fabricated, forms alloys, has a very high melting point and is highly conductive of heat and electricity. That suggests that the relative cheapness of waste tantalum makes it a fairly common industrial metal. I would expect it to be used in starship hulls. Carbide-graphite composites are apparently extremely hard. It is even biocompatible; one can use it for body implants.

I suspect that if tantalum is fairly cheap, then it'll be used in hypersonic aircraft or orbital interface spaceplanes as well as starships...
( A 1957 Hypersonic aircraft design study by Hanley-Page Aircraft, argued that a Tantalum-based alloy could be used to resist kinetic heating enough, so that speeds of Mach 7 could be obtainable from said vehicle...).

[ryanrulz37]

I suspect that if tantalum is fairly cheap, then it'll be used in hypersonic aircraft or orbital interface spaceplanes as well as starships...
( A 1957 Hypersonic aircraft design study by Hanley-Page Aircraft, argued that a Tantalum-based alloy could be used to resist kinetic heating enough, so that speeds of Mach 7 could be obtainable from said vehicle...).

Quite possible.

[BMonnery]

Originally Posted by G. Fieendish

I suspect that if tantalum is fairly cheap, then it'll be used in hypersonic aircraft or orbital interface spaceplanes as well as starships...
( A 1957 Hypersonic aircraft design study by Hanley-Page Aircraft, argued that a Tantalum-based alloy could be used to resist kinetic heating enough, so that speeds of Mach 7 could be obtainable from said vehicle...).

It's probably not necessary to isotopically separate it. Simply take the refined metal, blast it a nuclear reactor was that a proportion is the nuclear isomer 180m and then use.

[ryanrulz37]

Refined Tantalum in 2300ad may be to the spacecraft building industry as allumium is to todays aerospace industry.