4 ms·

Unless you can harvest interstellar medium at scale stars are where most mass is locked up, conveniently in a single place even. Outer belt objects are quite sm

Unless you can harvest interstellar medium at scale stars are where most mass is locked up, conveniently in a single place even. Outer belt objects are quite small in volume in comparison and inconveniently far from each other.

ncmncm 6y ago
The outer belt objects are small compared to planets, but are enormous considered as extracted volume, and uncountably numerous; whereas on inner planets you are effectively limited to the solidified skin at the bottom of an annoying gravity well, bathed in heat that must be shed. Kuiper belt distances are inconvenient only when you are in a hurry and have limited speeds. Given fusion propulsion, nothing inside a solar system is especially far from anything else. But a large volume to operate in, which grows as r^3, is valuable, and an unlimited sink of cold, moreso. If you need more mass, Neptune is right there.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Good point - the exposed surface are for easy mining is pretty massive for outer system objects & accessible without the need for advanced stuff like planet cracking and solar lifting.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    At 1G acceleration, nothing in the Kuiper belt is more than a few days away. You can send out robots if you need more mass than you have on hand. Or, maybe you are robots, and can take 100G. Then the Oort cloud is your playground.
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      With sustained > 1G we are effectively talking torch drives, not just "normal" fusion drives. Not many technologies we know of that might pull that off, possibly with the exception of nuclear salt water rocket.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        Anything we could ever cobble together is necessarily unspeakably primitive when compared to what the Oort Cloud "elder gods" perfected lo untold eons before primates first chipped rocks.
ncmncm 6y ago
To add, we are only just beginning to experience a hint of the plague of excess exhaust heat. It only gets worse, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Well, for how bad it can get one can check Puppeteers home world in Nivens Known Space universe - that damn planet shines white in visible spectrum in many places due to waste heat and they indeed had to move it farther from their sun.

ncmncm 6y ago

The outer belt objects are small compared to planets, but are enormous considered as extracted volume, and uncountably numerous; whereas on inner planets you are effectively limited to the solidified skin at the bottom of an annoying gravity well, bathed in heat that must be shed. Kuiper belt distances are inconvenient only when you are in a hurry and have limited speeds. Given fusion propulsion, nothing inside a solar system is especially far from anything else. But a large volume to operate in, which grows as r^3, is valuable, and an unlimited sink of cold, moreso. If you need more mass, Neptune is right there.

m4rtink 6y ago
Good point - the exposed surface are for easy mining is pretty massive for outer system objects & accessible without the need for advanced stuff like planet cracking and solar lifting.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  At 1G acceleration, nothing in the Kuiper belt is more than a few days away. You can send out robots if you need more mass than you have on hand. Or, maybe you are robots, and can take 100G. Then the Oort cloud is your playground.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    With sustained > 1G we are effectively talking torch drives, not just "normal" fusion drives. Not many technologies we know of that might pull that off, possibly with the exception of nuclear salt water rocket.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      Anything we could ever cobble together is necessarily unspeakably primitive when compared to what the Oort Cloud "elder gods" perfected lo untold eons before primates first chipped rocks.

ncmncm 6y ago

To add, we are only just beginning to experience a hint of the plague of excess exhaust heat. It only gets worse, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress.

m4rtink 6y ago
Well, for how bad it can get one can check Puppeteers home world in Nivens Known Space universe - that damn planet shines white in visible spectrum in many places due to waste heat and they indeed had to move it farther from their sun.