/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6035511]

Hey /sci/, it's /tg/

What would you want to see in a game where you play a corporation that is expanding across and exploiting the solar system's virgin resources, if I was going for hard science? The game is set sometime in the mid 2100s, and there's been almost no theoretical advancement since the modern day, though there's been lots more actually building spacecraft, the ideas are the same.

Also, what good are Mars and Venus?

[Anonymous No.6035567]

>>6035511

>Mars and Venus

Presumably, they have the same rare earth/precious metals that can be found here but you can mine it without polluting your back yard. I saw somewhere that metal veins are commonly found below craters because the impact melts the metal and it separates by density. Given that Mars, the Moon, and all the trans jovian objects are geologically dead, craters would tend to accumulate and so mining could be easier. Other than that, they're just rocks...

I'd like to see a game that actually gives a realistic perspective of sizes and distances in the solar system. The asteroid belts are so thinly dispersed that if you're standing on one asteroid/planetoid/whatever, you wouldn't be able to see the next one it would be so far away. The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid belt don't take a robot to calculate.

[Anonymous No.6035697]

Would play. Are you talking about a tabletop game?

Mining for rare earth metals would be big. I know how much longer our bronze and gold supply, which are vital for wiring and computer chips, will last. You'd have to manage oxygen, fuel, incoming care packages from earth, random disasters, sounds like lots of fun.

Venus is neat because of how dense the atmosphere. You could conceivably design a ship that floats in the atmosphere. Mining Venus would be difficult because of all the heat.

[Anonymous No.6035756]

>>6035511
One thing I would definitely wanna see would be how technological innovations give some sort of advantage, not sure how you might design this. Perhaps the amount of labor assigned to extracting resources vs. amount of labor assigned to research would be a rudimentary start for such a design. This might also create a nice variety of strategies with the quick victory corresponding to devoting all resources toward expansion and resource extraction in the present, whereas a long-winded strategy could be to invest in science and technology in the present to gain superiority in the future.

[Anonymous No.6035762]

Asteroids, nigga! Asteroid mining is where its at.

Consider that when mining other planets, you have to first get out of our own gravity well, then climb up the sun's well (on the way to the site or back, no matter), then you have to land, do the actual work, and then climb a second gravity well.

It's a shitload of delta v, especially if you assume no big breakthroughs in propulsion technology. Can't cheat physics, fuel weighs like a motherfucker, and reactionless drives aren't gonna happen in this universe.

So again, asteroids. You go up, you bring a nice, juicy chunk of heavy metals into a far orbit, you stick a refinery on it, and proceed to dump dirt-cheap metal into the oceans. You'd need to figure out a way to make the suckers float, but hey. Still easier than mining other planets.

Some people say just one big asteroid could contain more easily accessible gold or platinum than was, or ever will be, mined on Earth. Can;t for the life of me recall the sauce on this, so I'm just gonna fuck off and go to sleep now.

[Anonymous No.6035768]

>>6035762
>and proceed to dump dirt-cheap metal into the oceans.
Why even bring that shit back to earth? You could build whole civilizations up there witha single asteroid

[Anonymous No.6035772]

>>6035511
>if I was going for hard science?

You're going to have an extremely slow paced game. I think getting the scale of the game could be a difficult one to be right with. There should be sub-light (0.1c to 0.4c) engines whose use would be very limited due to the rarity and expense of the engines.

Maybe sub-light isn't too difficult to achieve with chemical rockets if it turns out the solar system is filled with organic material or giant space hydrogen/LOX refuel stations but in any case I would imagine it's expensive.

What is the game going for? Simcity but in space? Space flight & mining simulator?

You start off with 30 asteroid probes, 2 mining operations, 2 harvest transports. It is up to you to send the probes out to suspected targets, decipher the information from the probe to pick the target with the highest potential value, send a mining operation and bring it back to the Moon base for processing. The information should be highly technical and realistic, requiring real life studying to understand. I don't feel the typical "lol 85% chance shitload of gold is here" will do a game like this justice. It needs to be difficult, very difficult, with spectrographs and data and pictures etc.

Maybe difficulty at the deep end isn't great for everyone but it shouldn't be ignored and should be encouraged.

[Anonymous No.6035776]

>>6035768

You are now aware platinum is a dirt cheap metal during the new age.

[Anonymous No.6035775]

>>6035772
>0.4c
What kind of engine could even do that?

[Anonymous No.6035779]

>>6035775
>What kind of engine could even do that?

SSME with a fuel tank the size of the moon?

[Anonymous No.6035784]

>>6035772

Also, bonus points for leaving/drawing a penis at any destination.

[Anonymous No.6035797]

>>6035511
>>mid 2100s, and there's been almost no theoretical advancement since the modern day
What a horrifying future. Bump the date down to 2030 or something and blame a world superpower for backing out of the Space Treaty, you know the one that says you can't own land in space? Well if a country back out of it, then it could cause a huge land-rush in space with various countries vying for their own piece of the heavens.

First off, don't go mining shiny metals and shipping them to earth, if you want a world where people are living in space you'll need to mine the basics. You'll need iron, titanium, and other metals for alloys, silicon and dopants(boron can be surprisingly hard to get) for solar panels, and of course you'll need your volatiles like C,H,and N for people, plastics, and many other things.

Oxygen is really easy to get, it's a waste product of metal refining. Fluorine was found to be rate limiting for a NASA study I'll link below, it's a really handy element for extracting other elements.

And don't forget all your materials processing you must do to turn raw materials into products!

Look up ISRU and check out this study on mining the Moon:
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
You can get everything you really need for industry lunar regolith.

[Anonymous No.6037227]

>>6035797
>First off, don't go mining shiny metals and shipping them to earth

The most complex construction operations will likely be conducted in Earth's orbit or on the moon. This is because the most expensive/complicated components will come from Earth's surface and will need launched somewhere and there will need to be human engineers for maintenance of the complicated and somewhat new space manufacturing equipment.

Materials processing could take place on the mineral transport ships while they're en route from the asteroid belt. Solar powered furance will have plenty of time to heat up and extract the metals. By the time it reaches Earth it will be ready to be processed into whatever e.g. steel can be extruded into 1 Km lengths for construction of Starship 1.

[Anonymous No.6037741]

hey /sci/, it's a new fa/tg/uy this time. You guys should check out this thread
>>27323410

[Anonymous No.6037742]

>>6037741
>>>/tg/27323649

[Anonymous No.6037880]

>>6037227

I've made some calculations to estimate the mass of steel required for a nominal interstellar vessel.

A 10 x 1 x 1 Km seemed like a fair size to start with. I have no doubt a real interstellar ship / fleet will have to be much larger than this.

I'm assuming a mesh of steel beams for the structure because it's a basic starting point.

Beams are typical I-section construction type. 457mm x 152mm with a mass of 60kg/m

Spacing of beams is 15m along the length and width and 30m along the height. This results in 67 beams lengthwise, 667 beams widthwise with a total of 34 layers. I've just realised I haven't accounted for material to join these layers.

Total steel per layer is 80.22 million tons
Total steel for 34 layers is 2727.48 million tons

For comparison consider global steel production for 2012 was 1547.8 million tons
One layer = 5.2% of global production
34 layers = 176% of global production

These numbers are huge.

[Anonymous No.6037881]

>>6037880

Forgot my picture

[Anonymous No.6037885]

>>6037880
>let's start by assuming 340 km^2 living area
>...and all-steel construction

[Anonymous No.6037916]

>>6037227
>>This is because the most expensive/complicated components will come from Earth's surface
If you have people living in space, you're gonna try everything you can not to up-port stuff from a gravity well, because upporting is expensive.

The only thing that might be upporting would be microchips, they're light and very valuable.

However, there's no reason they couldn't be produced in space. In fact, some silicon refining processes are gravity limited

>>the complicated and somewhat new space manufacturing equipment.
Can be done with late 70s tech. Check out these space manufacturing studies:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/manufacturing/library.htm

>>Materials processing could take place on the mineral transport ships while they're en route from the asteroid belt
bad idea, you'd be delta V'ing a whole bunch crap that would be best to dump overboard. Supporting solar mirrors is hard during acceleration

[Anonymous No.6037940]

>>6037916

If the manufacturing machines aren't already in space there are a lot of things you will be forced to bring from earth. Just think of how many different machines and processes are involved in making a simple power drill, it will be easier to fit some onto a rocket compared to setting up the required infrastructure.

Microchips are a candidate for commercial space production because of the limitations of silicon that you've mentioned. This operation could pay for itself because of how useful it will be back on the surface.

>bad idea, you'd be delta V'ing a whole bunch crap that would be best to dump overboard.

I would say that the time involved in transporting it and fuel cost will be a determining factor into whether or not dumping is more appropriate. You're already waiting a very long time for it to get from A to B, for the sake of spending a little extra on fuel it could be worth the reduction of time and energy wasted in processing when it arrives.

>Supporting solar mirrors is hard during acceleration

I don't know what you mean. Supporting them structurally? I don't understand why this is a problem.

[Anonymous No.6037950]

>>6037885

340 km^2 is the size of a moderate city. Interstellar travel will require several generations of people so this is really on the small side.

Have you got a better material than steel?

[Anonymous No.6038027]

>>6037950
>Have you got a better material than steel?

Steel also means it has the potential to survive a nuclear blast.

[Anonymous No.6038055]

>>6038027
Not that guy, but why steel? A lot of other materials can also 'survive a nuclear blast'.

Why do you think steel is exceptional?

[Anonymous No.6038126]

>>6035511
/g/ here, i know how to code and i might try to make such a MMO game IN !!2D!!

[Anonymous No.6038129]

>>6035511
Venus is hell, literally. You'd die after about a second of being on the surface. It rains acid and the atmosphere is thick with CO2.

Mars is okay tho.

[Anonymous No.6038134]

>>6035776
Sounds interesting. Strap some rockets on an asteroids, mine it, and you've got a fairly self-sufficient colony in spaaaaaaaaaace.

[Anonymous No.6038138]

I'm waiting for the day when "Asteroid Miners" and "Ice Planet Truckers" become TV shows on the History Channel.

[Anonymous No.6038160]

>>6035567
check into orbiter. It's a realistic simulator for spaceflight...and I mean VERY realistic...as in you need a pretty firm grasp of orbital mechanics and rocket science in order to be able to play it.

[Anonymous No.6038411]

>>6038055

It's strong, easily worked and abundant.

Polymers require hydrocarbons and processing.

You could use other metals but abundancy and function will dictate it, we like steel.

You could make giant steel skins and fill the cavities with the left over rocks and dust from the previous processing steps.

[Anonymous No.6038457]

>>6037950
>340 km^2 is the size of a moderate city. Interstellar travel will require several generations of people so this is really on the small side.
First of all, there's no basis for claiming that interstellar travel will require several generations. The nearest stars are under 5 light years away, and very high speed travel would involve time dilation. Technology is likely to increase human lifespan, and make reproduction possible without continuity of full human beings, based on preserved cell lines and artificial wombs.

Cold sleep is a realistic possibility. Nerve-interface virtual reality, as a way to make life tolerable while living in cramped quarters, is an even more realistic possibility.

Secondly, there's no basis for claiming that "a moderate city" is required to support a viable population for a few generations. You'd only need on the order of a thousand people.

>Have you got a better material than steel?
Steel is just about the worst material to make an interstellar spacecraft out of. At least start from something like aluminum or carbon fiber composite.

This is not a reasonable way to estimate the minimum mass for a manned interstellar vessel.

[joker !KNs1o0VDv6 No.6038458]

could we gmo'ed humans to be able breath the atmosphere of mars,as well as earth's?

[Anonymous No.6038620]

>>6038457
>The nearest stars are under 5 light years away,

And what about all of the other ones?

>Technology is likely to increase human lifespan, and make reproduction possible without continuity of full human beings, based on preserved cell lines and artificial wombs.

Fantasy

>Steel is just about the worst material to make an interstellar spacecraft out of.

Why?

It's a great material and doesn't weigh anything in space.

>At least start from something like aluminum or carbon fiber composite.

Why?

Aluminium production is much more energy intensive than steel.

Aluminium is a lot more finicky with age/work hardening than steel.

Carbon fiber is really expensive on earth, never mind trying to make the stuff in space.


It's almost like you're basing your arguments on dreams and unicorn whispers.

[Anonymous No.6038635]

except the problem comes when you're hurtling through space fast enough to acheive time dilation in your aluminum space ship and you go through an asteroid field, or for that matter any of the space junk that is just floating around. At that speed it will rip holes right through your spacehip and you're all dead

[Anonymous No.6038655]

>>6038620
>It's a great material and doesn't weigh anything in space.
>Aluminium production is much more energy intensive than steel.
>Carbon fiber is really expensive on earth, never mind trying to make the stuff in space.

[Anonymous No.6038663]

>>6038620
>doesn't weigh anything in space.
It's almost like you're basing your arguments on spectacular ignorance.

[Anonymous No.6038664]

>>6038635

It's ok because technology will probably have invented force field shields....

This is another argument in favour of steel. It's very easily repaired with a steel plate and a welder. Aluminium is much more of a bitch to weld and you can't weld carbon fiber.

[Anonymous No.6038670]

>>6038655
Weight is not mass.
nuff' said innit.

[Anonymous No.6038671]

>>6038663

What's wrong? Can't handle facts?

[Anonymous No.6038684]

>>6038671
Okay, you explain the "facts" to me of why the structural mass of an interstellar rocket ship doesn't matter.

Take your time. I'll wait.

[Anonymous No.6038691]

>>6038411
Steel also requires processing, unless you want cast-iron spaceships of millions of different attributes, most of them bad.

Carbon and hydrogen are readily available in small, medium, and large chunks all over the solar system.

>>6038620
In space, you could use plentiful sunlight and produce immense amounts of alumin(i)um with it. Of course, any large-scale production would probably use sunlight, including steel production and others.

[Anonymous No.6038693]

>>6038684

Who said it doesn't matter?

It doesn't matter in the sense that we don't have to haul it out of Earth's gravity well.

Why don't you explain why aluminium is better than steel?

[Anonymous No.6038704]

>>6038691

>Carbon and hydrogen are readily available in small, medium, and large chunks all over the solar system.

Ok I'll concede it's probably a good bit easier and safer to make polymers in space compared to steel but they do suffer from degradation over time, especially when you include space radiation.

[Anonymous No.6038712]

>>6038693
>Who said it doesn't matter?

See:
>>6038620
>>Steel is just about the worst material to make an interstellar spacecraft out of.
>Why?
>It's a great material and doesn't weigh anything in space.

>Why don't you explain why aluminium is better than steel?
Same reason aluminum is better than steel for aircraft: higher strength-to-mass ratio.

Why don't you explain why you feel qualified to even express an opinion without understanding why steel is a bad material to build spacecraft out of?

[Anonymous No.6038728]

>>6038704
There are a lot of qualifiers in that claim.

You actually DON'T want to use heavy elements like iron as your only radiation shielding, because neutron radiation will just make your shielding itself radioactive. To be on the safer side, you shield yourself with layers of different materials, with the lighter elements on the outside.

Besides, if you make the outermost layer from carbon-reinforced ice for example, it will be easy and cheap to repair or even replace if needed. Certainly easier than a steel armor.

[Anonymous No.6038730]

>>6038712

The only reason we don't use steel in planes is because of gravity and the unobtainable fuel-energy density required to allow it to fly.

An interstellar ship requires longevity more than fuel efficiency

[Anonymous No.6038740]

>>6038730
>An interstellar ship requires longevity more than fuel efficiency
It doesn't require MORE of either. It requires both or the exercise is meaningless.

[Anonymous No.6038737]

>>6038730
So what you're saying here is that you know absolutely nothing about how rockets work.

[Anonymous No.6038746]

3.Dimensional planet scanning with topography and the option to physically occupy that planet and perform tests on the surface. also the planet itself to be entirly traversable. os you can walk east for ages and eventually come back to where you started from.

Venus is future earth if we don't address climate change issues. Mars is a planet with potential terraforming capabilities for when we fuck earth, we can have somewhere to live.

[Anonymous No.6038747]

>>6038728

I wasn't considering shielding but you've made a good point. I like your carbon-reinforced ice idea, except for the fact it could be difficult to keep it as ice. A cavity in the hull filled with pumped water as part of the heat dissipation system could protect everyone but it has no structural benefits.

[Anonymous No.6038750]

>>6038740

One trumps the other. They're not of perfectly equal priority.

>>6038737

It's you that knows nothing. Say something that isn't nothing.

[Anonymous No.6038763]

>>6038750
Do you really not understand that it costs a tremendous amount of energy and propellant to accelerate things up to speeds suitable for interstellar travel, and that if something weighs twice as much it costs twice as much to accelerate?

You're arguing shit like, "steel is better than aluminum, because it costs less energy to make steel than aluminum" and "steel's mass doesn't matter because no gravity in space lol", when getting any given gram of that ship up to speed is going to cost more energy than making a ton of aluminum.

You're really being just spectacularly stupid here.

[Anonymous No.6038772]

>>6038747
>it could be difficult to keep it as ice
In the inner system, possibly. But unless you really want to say hi to the sun, a foil covering, maybe as a part of a whipple shield, should be sufficient to keep losses to manageable levels. And in the outer system and beyond, there shouldn't be any problems.

>>6038750
>One trumps the other. They're not of perfectly equal priority.
Again, qualifiers. You can manage lower survivability with larger quantities.

[Anonymous No.6038794]

>>6038763

Ok it requires more fuel but there's definitely not the same requirement for keeping mass down like we do on earth.

If steel will increase my chances of survival I will favour that

[Anonymous No.6038799]

>>6038794
>there's definitely not the same requirement for keeping mass down like we do on earth.
There is a MUCH, MUCH GREATER requirement for keeping the mass down.

Jesus. Fucking moron.

[Anonymous No.6038811]

>>6038799
>MUCH, MUCH GREATER requirement

For what? For the sake of saving fuel?

It may be fuel inefficient but it's not going to drop out of the sky.

[Anonymous No.6038827]

>>6038811
>it's not going to drop out of the sky
Not that guy, but okay, you really need to do some homework on this.

Not dropping out of the sky is exactly the problem here. As in without fuel, you will end up coasting for a practical eternity until the atoms that make up you and your ship evaporate while you sail in the darkness toward timelike infinity.

[Anonymous No.6038832]

>>6038799

I suppose you could look at my approach as being similar to the "Sea Dragon" or "Big dumb booster" ideas.

There is a lot of room for refinement but I think starting heavy is the right thing to do.

You don't build a bridge or building as light as possible because safety and cost are more important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_%28rocket%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster

[Anonymous No.6038835]

>>6038827
>As in without fuel, you will end up coasting for a practical eternity until the atoms that make up you and your ship evaporate while you sail in the darkness toward timelike infinity.

Maybe you should have filled the tank enough before you set off

[Anonymous No.6038836]

>>6038832
>and cost

I said cost here because the aerospace industry practically works with a blank cheque to shave mass off everything.

[Anonymous No.6038844]

>>6038811
The cost of the trip is mainly going to be proportional to the mass of the ship.

So look at it this way:
- if you're looking at it from the point of view of safety, for whatever amount you're able to spend on structural mass, the steel ship will be *weaker* than one made of aluminum
- if you're looking at it from the point of view of speed, for whatever amount you're willing to spend on propulsion, the steel ship will be *slower* than one made of aluminum
- if you're looking at it from the point of payload, for whatever you're able to spend on total ship mass, the steel ship will *carry less* than one made of aluminum
- if you're looking at it from the point of economy, for whatever payload you need to send, the steel ship will make it *more expensive* than the one made of aluminum

Now I'm not even saying that aluminum is a good choice. I'm just giving it as a trivial example of how grossly unsuitable steel is for your ship structure.

Excess mass is bad, therefore using a low strength-to-mass structural material is very bad.

[Anonymous No.6038854]

>>6038835
Or maybe the gas would have been enough if YOU hadn't decided to attach a full M1A2 chobham armor on a fucking WV beetle.

[Anonymous No.6038862]

>>6038854
b-but muh angry ancient aliens

[Anonymous No.6038873]

>>6038862
Yeah, if said aliens want you dead, they'll throw such a pile of shit on you, that your armor will be about as useful as an umbrella.

If you're worried about hitting debris at cruise speed, you use active defenses and whipple shields, because if you hit something they can't handle, the amount of steel you'd need to protect yourself from it will slow you down so much you might as well not have left at all.

[Anonymous No.6038888]

>>6038832
It's different. The energy costs of getting to orbit are quite reasonable, in the neighborhood of a couple of gallons of gas per pound payload. Most of the cost of an orbital launch rocket is in construction of the rocket. So making the rocket cheaper to construct, or reusable, can be a huge savings, even if you sacrifice a lot of performance.

The energy costs of interstellar travel would be, for lack of a better word, astronomical. They're orders of magnitude beyond any reasonable material costs.

[Anonymous No.6038890]

>>6038844

Nice list of points that I'm saving.

I don't think it's grossly unsuitable, it definitely has its uses and reality will use a combination of many different materials.

The sheer scale of the operation still stands. Consider the number of people that work in the steel industry on earth and the fact the Starship will need 175% of a year's production for a construction project with a timescale of 25 years. (25 is a nice rough number, no one likes projects where they will be dead by the end of it).

We need a SHITLOAD more people with the skills to work in space.

[Anonymous No.6038897]

>>6038873

We could find a planet where they're tinkering with their first space station. They may be able to launch a nuke or two at us on first contact so I'd like to survive that initial blow.

[Anonymous No.6038900]

>>6038897
That's stupid.

Not least because you could construct an armor in situ if need be.

[Anonymous No.6038904]

>>6038890
>the fact the Starship will need 175% of a year's production
I've already pointed out that your method of estimation is completely fucking insane.

You assumed an arbitrary amount of iron per unit area, for an arbitrary structure of arbitrary size. That's not an estimate of anything, you just made up some random numbers and multiplied them by some other random numbers to produce another random number.

You're concerned with how much iron is presently produced on Earth in a year, when talking about building not only a structure in space, but an interstellar spacecraft. If you think how to get enough iron to build the thing is even slightly a concern, this should be a hint that you're talking about something that absolutely can't be built under the conditions you're imagining.

[Anonymous No.6038905]

>>6038900
>STOP don't kill me yet. I just need to build my defenses.

This isn't how war works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2eJNjCjCFg

[Anonymous No.6038907]

>>6038905
This show is great.

[Anonymous No.6038908]

>>6038904
>You assumed an arbitrary amount of iron per unit area, for an arbitrary structure of arbitrary size. That's not an estimate of anything, you just made up some random numbers and multiplied them by some other random numbers to produce another random number.

It's not COMPLETELY arbitrary. It's based on my own experience with construction on earth, standard beams and spacing. I think it's a fair guess to start getting an idea of the scale.

My estimate shows that it's fucking huge and there are a lot of things that need to be done to make it feasible. Iron or something else, volume requirements will still be on this scale. Getting enough material is a massive concern. (lel I made a massive pun)

[Anonymous No.6038909]

>>6038905
Yes it is, since you're the one who posited that they would be building their first nikes at the time. Now tell me, after making the first nukes, how long did it thake US to build a measly chemical rocket that was only capable of putting a tiny tiny capsule on a coasting course to the Moon?

Add to that the fact that an interstellar ship will have active defenses capable of hitting pebbles at relativistic speeds and of necessity, enough resources to build a self-sufficient colony, which can probably also be used to build an ice armor in months at maximum.

In the short run, the interstellars would outgun the more primitive civilization by more than just a little, even if all they could throw against them was their ship's main drive. Remember the Kzinti Lesson: the more efficient a reaction drive is, the better a weapon it makes.

[Anonymous No.6038913]

>>6038909
>you're the one who posited that they would be building their first nikes at the time

How are nikes going to stop aliens?

[Anonymous No.6038919]

>>6038909
>Remember the Kzinti Lesson
muh nigga,
That post in general is just about right, all the weapons you'll ever need are the drive and PD.
Only defence you'll need is actives and radiation shielding and such. If an cosmic rock or even worse an hypotethical alien weapon passes by your actives there is no sane amount of iron you can have around your ship to keep you alive. Better to just leave it home to actually get to your destination.

[Anonymous No.6038917]

>>6038913
Humm, workable typo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike

But of course I meant nukes.

On another hand, we might as well shape an asteroid into a huge shoe and hit the pesky locals with it.

[Anonymous No.6038933]

>>6038917
>Humm, workable typo.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike

Touché

[Anonymous No.6038958]

>>6038917
>On another hand, we might as well shape an asteroid into a huge shoe and hit the pesky locals with it.

Putting the effort into shaping it into a shoe shows that we have class. We're respectable aliens with a taste for fine art.

[Anonymous No.6038962]

>>6038958
And if the small shoe doesn't give them the hint, we'll give them the boot.

[Anonymous No.6038972]

>>6038962

Das boot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuDtACzKGRs

[Anonymous No.6038975]

>>6038972
Are you mad? Are you crazy?

Who in their right mind would even consider such waste of beer?

[Anonymous No.6038996]

>>6038975
Fill it with wieners?

[Anonymous No.6039008]

>>6038996
Or diamondoid dragon dildos?
Now THAT would be a poignant message.

[Anonymous No.6039016]

>>6037940

>>If the manufacturing machines aren't already in space there are a lot of things you will be forced to bring from earth
100 years into the future with rockets in space, so yes there will be manufacturing machines in space.

>> Just think of how many different machines and processes are involved in making a simple power drill
A power drill is an electric motor+gearbox in a plastic shell, power drills are not hard to make

If you can produce microchips in space, you can make practically anything.

>>Supporting them structurally?
Yes, if you are accelerating at 1g, it's hard to support a gossamer thin space mirror.

[Anonymous No.6039020]

>>6038160
FINALLY, someone mentions Orbiter around here and not KSP!

[Anonymous No.6039030]

>>6039020
The little bulge above the nose makes me envision a dong shape from above.

>inb4 "makes"

[Anonymous No.6039061]

>>6039016
>A power drill is an electric motor+gearbox in a plastic shell, power drills are not hard to make

How many parts are in the electric motor and gearbox? How much equipment is required?

It's shocking the effort that goes into the most mundane of things. The joys of mass production never cease to amaze me.

[Anonymous No.6039068]

>>6039016
>Yes, if you are accelerating at 1g, it's hard to support a gossamer thin space mirror.

Line the backside of it with cardboard. Problem solved.

[Anonymous No.6039159]

JUPITER. I assume this corporation will want to be harvesting hydrogen/helium to use for nuclear fusion reactors. Jupiter contains hella such gases. The corporation can operate from one of its moons.
Use your imagination to determine the method of extraction.

Also, the asteroid belts near Jupiter and at the edge of the solar system. Metals and minerals will be needed, and that's where you will get them from.

[Anonymous No.6039311]

>>6039159
Jupiter doesn't have helium. Maybe at its core but not near the surface.

[Anonymous No.6039316]

>>6035511

[Anonymous No.6039319]

>>6039311
Atmospheric gases don't segregate that easily. Helium is well-mixed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.6039324]

>>6039311

Mars has...

[Anonymous No.6039362]

>>6035762
>Can't cheat physics
Not with that attitude.

[Anonymous No.6039371]

>>6035762
Asteroid mining has its own delta-v issues. First of all, you've got to escape Earth's gravity entirely. Then you've got to travel to an asteroid (you have to *find* a suitable asteroid, and that's not so easy), and you have to match velocities with it. They're in all sorts of weird orbits.

Moon mining has a lot to recommend it. It doesn't take all that much delta-v to get off of or onto the moon, for one thing. You can set up a launch catapult, propellant production, and things like laser power transmission so there's some local infrastructure that makes delta-v costs much more bearable. Asteroids have been falling on it for a long time, so you know it has pretty much everything that's on asteroids, if you search around enough.

But the best thing about the moon is that since it's close, you can get to it and back quickly and easily. So you can get the returns on your investment in a reasonable amount of time, and you can re-invest them in more moon-mining.

[Anonymous No.6039613]

>>6039371

If gold came to earth by asteroids then the surface of the moon should be littered with the stuff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22904141

[Anonymous No.6039653]

>>6039371
I'm surprised you weren't swarmed by the asteroidfags who want to abandon any and all larger bodies altogether.

Actually, looking at this thread, I'm pleasantly surprised how even and mostly polite it has been, without any of the usual "my way isn't just the best way, it's the ONLY way" kind of posts that usually make up at least three quarters of these threads.

[Anonymous No.6039691]

>>6039371
>>6039613

I'm the asteroidfag, and those are both excellent points.

Let's drill the moon until it looks like Swiss Cheese!

And THEN lets mine the motherfucking asteroids!

But seriously, that second post got me thinking. The Moon is basically a huge asteroid junkyard, it really should have all the crap that is in asteroids. Do we have any data to verify this? Needs googling, by the Gods!

[Anonymous No.6039718]

>>6039691
You'd probably have to seismically map the moon a lot better than we have now and then take several deep exploratory cores to even know if and how much valuable minerals there might be in the crust.

I wonder what it might be like to drill on the moon. You'd have to go very slowly if use of fluids turned out to be too much of a hassle.

[Anonymous No.6039723]

>>6039718

Regolith is meant to be an absolute nightmare of a material, super sharp and hard dust . It will destroy any drilling equipment you send there much faster than you see on earth.

[Anonymous No.6039727]

>>6039723
Yeah, I was recalling that might be the case.
Of course, that's still just the upper crust. We don't know what the material properties will be under that.

Maybe we'd be best off to make a large open pit and drill at the bottom, or choose a really young crater and go from there.

[Anonymous No.6039755]

>>6039727
btw, we can't drill boreholes deeper than ~12km on Earth because of the augmentation of temperatures (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole fr example). But in a planet/moon which has no geothermal acitivities anymore, how far could we drill ?

[Anonymous No.6039771]

>>6039755
Difficult to say. One of the reasons the Kola borehole had to stop was that the heat and deep pressure made the surrounding rock plastic, causing the borehole to squeeze back into the drill. On the moon, the lower gravity will also mean a more gradual pressure gradient, so that should also make a deeper hole possible.

But then again there's the unknown material properties and possible deep structures, so I wouldn't say anything definitive without more research.

[Anonymous No.6039793]

>>6039727
>Maybe we'd be best off to make a large open pit and

Even opening a large pit will be problematic. Plant machinery here has frequent trouble with dirt getting in the track bearings. You will either need humans there to maintain the equipment or very advanced engineer robots.

[Anonymous No.6039836]

>>6039793
Or a mix of both, augmented by telepresence.

[Anonymous No.6039954]

>>6039836
why does it crash so goddamn much, like 1 minute in game and boom

[Anonymous No.6040055]

>>6039954
You must build more pylons.

[Anonymous No.6040349]

>>6040055
Silos are needed for all those dubs you're getting

[Anonymous No.6040785]

>>6039954
I used to have it crash either due to the GPU overheating or lack of memory. Can you check your GPU temp while running SE?

[Anonymous No.6041139]

>>6039954
>>6039836

What is this?

[Anonymous No.6041512]

>>6041139
http://en.spaceengine.org/
>SpaceEngine - is a freeware space simulation software that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, starting from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies. Areas of the known universe are represented using actual astronomical data, while regions uncharted by astronomy are generated procedurally. Millions of galaxies, trillions of stars, countless planets - all available for exploration.

And that's not idle chatter.

[Anonymous No.6043194]

>>6041512

This looks fun.

I'm just going to add the link to Orbiter while we're here

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
>Fed up with space games that insult your intelligence and violate every law of physics? Orbiter is a simulator that gives you an idea what space flight really feels like - today and in the not so distant future. And best of all: you can download it for free!