Belting 101

[Fritz_Brown]

Bill, I think part of this is I am thinking of my own special design of "Seeker" (designed specifically for "Quaddies" from Falling Free by Bujold) - its pretty much a bit for fuel and drives, and a couple of large cylinders for cramming in ore (or what have you). All the lasers/manipulators are at the ends of these cylinders. It uses gravitics to compress the material being placed in the holds. It also uses the gravitics to eject the material at the destination. (And, yes, it can be used as a last-ditch defense mechanism.

)

No "modified S-types" for me, boyo! Of course, you do have to like living in almost total 0-g....

 

[parmasson]

By epicenter00
“more common on certain kinds of rocks, like Buckyball dust and petrochemicals (useful for the synthesis of plastics and other materials in lifeless systems).”

Petrochemicals on asteroids? Really. I never considered oil existing on non life bearing planets. I suppose enough carbon gets compressed and you could get coal.

I have the mining for uranium, gold, silver, platinum, lanthanum (jump drives), frozen gasses and other “rare earths”. Good ole fashioned iron, cheap and I think it can be “crystallized” to make it stronger.

Buckyball dust, gotta add that. Sounds dirty . . .

What else could be out there?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

KG, I have heard some talk that petroleum may not be based on dead dinos, after all. I think you would be hard-pressed to get whatever forms it in our planet's interior to occur on asteroids, though.

 

[epicenter00]

I tend to take the tack that our modern day understanding of science, especially cosmology, isn't complete. So I tend to sprinkle MTU with things that seem a bit implausible to our current understanding of cosmology, but actually turned out to be pretty common (or possible) once we actually get out there. One example being "Super Gas Giants" which are basically gas giants that everyone agrees have the mass to have sustained gravitic contraction to ignite into stars, but for some reason didn't.

In the same vein, I have things like petrochemicals on asteroids as the result of non-biological chemical reactions, as well as being belts that were once life-bearing planets until a certain Droyne decided to engage in criminal child abuse.

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by epicenter00:
I tend to take the tack that our modern day understanding of science, especially cosmology, isn't complete.

I like that. We wouldn't still be handing out Nobel prizes in Physics and Chemistry if our understanding of science was complete. Surprises that break the heretofore known rules occur relatively often, and only with the advantage of hindsight can we fit them into what we have known before.

One example being "Super Gas Giants" which are basically gas giants that everyone agrees have the mass to have sustained gravitic contraction to ignite into stars, but for some reason didn't.

Hasn't this been observed? In the sense that some of the first planets detected around other stars mass as Super Gas Giants much closer to their primary star than we imagined possible?

 

[Ptah]

epicenter00: For the chemical record petrochemicals can certainly be created by non-biological chemical reactions (actually our current ones are a combination of biological followed by geological reactions), non-biological reactions are far less efficient.
Polyaromatic hyrocarbons (PAHs) have been observed in interstellar clouds (of course at incredibly low densities but in huge volumes).
With fusion power, give me just hydrogen and oxygen and you can have all the water you want. Complex hydrocarbons can also be made given just carbon, hydrogen, and energy, a catalyst or two would be nice as well.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Ptah:
[...]still be handing out Nobel prizes in Physics and Chemistry if our understanding of science was complete.

I doubt that the 3I has anything similar to the Nobel prizes. I would think it wouldn't take 1000+ years to go a couple of TLs if you offered folks something for breakthroughs.

Now, my technocratic (originally, anayway) pocket empire hands out awards constantly for advancement. Why they have things like micro-jump....

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ptah:
[...]still be handing out Nobel prizes in Physics and Chemistry if our understanding of science was complete.

I doubt that the 3I has anything similar to the Nobel prizes. I would think it wouldn't take 1000+ years to go a couple of TLs if you offered folks something for breakthroughs.
</font>[/QUOTE]Yes I would imagine the 3I would hand out the Luddite Prize for exceptional achievements in why there shouldn't be exceptional achievement or any attempt at such.

Constant TL also realy helps in Imperial Procurement.

 

[Golan2072]

I've made my Belting system into an MS-Word file, with several additions.