Let's talk about the belief some authors have that skimming H2 off a gas giant somehow doesn't involve accelerating the H2 to orbital speeds and beyond.
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Replying to @jamesdnicoll @ToughSf and
I mean, it does, but we’re usually talking using it for reaction mass for a nuclear (electric or maybe exotic thermal) rocket or as nuclear fuel. Achieving that energy input is potentially feasible.
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Replying to @Robotbeat @ToughSf and
But why grab h2 from the bottom of a 20 to 60 km/s hole when there are icy moons available?
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Replying to @jamesdnicoll @Robotbeat and
Quite so. Water's every where. Outer main belt asteroids like 24 Themis covered with water ice. Hildas & Sun Jupiter Trojans likely have lots of water ice as well as other volatile ices. The water scarcity in The Expanse burst my WSOD. Even NEAs have hydrated clays.
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Replying to @HopDavid41 @jamesdnicoll and
I could be wrong but I get the impression that in The Expanse, the water scarcity is at Ceres. Which used to be full of volatile ices until the corporations strip mined it for the Mars Terraforming Project. Poor Ceres belters have to import ice from Saturn.
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Replying to @nyrath @HopDavid41 and
Even that doesn't add up when Epstein-drive spaceships a can haul thousands of tons, each, per week.
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There are a number of interesting and plausible transportation devices in the Main Belt to Jupiter neighborhood. Here's two: http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/07/hildas-as-cyclers.html … http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2014/06/travel-on-airless-worlds.html … If Ceres' full *volume* were used, it'd make Trantor look like Dogpatch.
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Replying to @HopDavid41 @ToughSf and
Oops posted the wrong "Travel on Airless Worlds" Should have been: http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2014/06/travel-on-airless-worlds-part-ii.html … This talks about an asteroid's volume being available in contrast to surface area of a planet or large moon.
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Replying to @HopDavid41 @nyrath and
No worries, all of those links are interesting and relevant.
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Ceres & Vesta spin 3 to 4 times faster than earth. This plus shallow gravity make it easy to build space elevators. Ships could be flung at a pretty good velocity. Building out from the equator would increase volume. As well as surface area to dump waste heat.
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Also that ocean...
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