[Meta] [RFC] Fenspace 2022, take 2

[classicdrogn]

Eough power to fold spacetime for a radius of approximately 1 mile around a 10mt+ object and project the contents a few dozen ly in one 30 second jump? Maybe? I'd rather have a couple of spares available so there's two per drive node. (And again, this isn't until another decade or two passes.)
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Ace Dreamer]

Speaking of power supplies...

Has anyone proposed a handwavium-enhanced thorium fission reactor?

The pro-nuclear fuel advocates IRL have been pushing this as uranium becomes less available/more expensive, and it's claimed that it's not usable for weapons as well as dealing with the nuclear waste problem.  Supposedly India is making a big push towards thorium reactor tech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...rium-based_nuclear_power
The reason I ask is that I could see it becoming a wide-spread technology in Fenspace, in this time frame...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[ECSNorway]

Nope... most of SBA/IslandFancy's ships are powered by banks of handwavium-inspired, reverse-engineered hardtech fusion reactors. The actual drive for the stardrive section would be a Utopia Planitia subcontracted warp drive.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

Nope... most of SBA/IslandFancy's ships are powered by banks of handwavium-inspired, reverse-engineered hardtech fusion reactors. The actual drive for the stardrive section would be a Utopia Planitia subcontracted warp drive.

Can you maybe move the hardtech fusion a little bit further away? Would be nice if the whole effort to get the Whole Fenspace Catalogs Fusion Reactors by JAXA would not just be effortlessly beaten by reverse engineering a handwaved reactor without Handwavium.

A few years later (2018-2020), they might even be able to license/buy the design.

[Dartz]

There are Cool Cuke reactors which explicitly run on enriched Uranium from... I don't know. Black Aeronaut Technologies sell them and use them for just about everything they build.

The Friggan modification adds a nuclear fusor to the core which uses some of the core's energy to catalyse a nuclear fusion reaction, which injects more neutrons into the core, and generates much more power from the same amount of fuel. It's controlled solely by throttling the fusion rate, which means there's a lot of booster lag.

Theres no reason why the patrol wouldn't encourage a switch to an alternate fuel source.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Ace Dreamer]

Personally, I'd prefer there be less weapons-grade, or near weapons-grade, enriched uranium about...

You might be able to get uranium by good enough zone refining of asteroid metal.

Gold and platinum similarly...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Dartz]

Honestly, I agree. And enriching Uranium is an immediate red flag for manufacturing Spacebattles Delight. In practice, there're bound to be a whole bunch of these technologies out there. Which can be used for great good, or great harm. Enriched Uranium improves the power density of the engine core, and time between refuels. It can also make crude A bombs.

Dual-use technologies is a fact of life, and is bound to be a bureaucratic headache, with every microgramme accounted for throughout the entire process to keep it from being siphoned off. Enough of a pain in the arse that someone will develop an alternative.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Ace Dreamer]

How about this:

Thorium reactors came to mostly replace uranium reactors for a number of practical reasons. One, thorium is cheaper, Two, the reactor will enrich its own fuel from naturally mined thorium, without need for separate enrichment and processing, Three, the reactor 'burns' nuclear waste so it become safe in decades rather than millennium. Oh, and you don't have to keep hosting visits from nuclear weapons inspectors. [grin]

It was also found that thorium reactors could directly drive (safe) 'cosmic energy' taps which increased their effective power output by orders of magnitude (at least x100), whereas uranium reactors somehow interfered with this process. However, this tapping process only worked given access to a lot of vacuum, so was useless for planetary installations with an atmosphere. Uranium reactors also seemed to interfere with certain varieties of space drive, meaning their efficiency significantly decreased, something only discovered when researchers started to take a close look at the figures.

--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Can you maybe move the hardtech fusion a little bit further away? Would be nice if the whole effort to get the Whole Fenspace Catalogs Fusion Reactors by JAXA would not just be effortlessly beaten by reverse engineering a handwaved reactor without Handwavium.

A few years later (2018-2020), they might even be able to license/buy the design.

The only hardtech Fusion facility on Earth is the Meyrin Fusion Powerplant near C.E.R.N. which was a gift from the Fen (the Banzai Institute extracted the plans, Clark Universal Construction built it, the Browncoats supply the Helium-3) in 2014 (see http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... Curve_2014]here). It means the particle acccelerators can run all year and the spare energy can be used by Switzerland or France. This probably inspired JAXA.
The reason they have not become more widespread is that the only source of Helium-3 in any reasonable amount is the Fen, and some don't like having to rely on a single source. I.T.E.R. is focusing on Deuterium reactors, although a hybrid Helium-3 catalised/Deuterium reactor has been proposed.

[HRogge]

The only hardtech Fusion facility on Earth is the Meyrin Fusion Powerplant near C.E.R.N. which was a gift from the Fen (the Banzai Institute extracted the plans, Clark Universal Construction built it, the Browncoats supply the Helium-3) in 2014 (see http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... Curve_2014]here). It means the particle acccelerators can run all year and the spare energy can be used by Switzerland or France.

Using a medium S-class AI to reverse engineer a design is unfair

This probably inspired JAXA.

JAXA has been working on this shortly afterwards the Catalog was released

*sigh* does this mean everyone in Fenspace has hardtech fusion in 2014? This kills parts of my ESA/JAXA story I would say. -.-

The reason they have not become more widespread is that the only source of Helium-3 in any reasonable amount is the Fen, and some don't like having to rely on a single source. I.T.E.R. is focusing on Deuterium reactors, although a hybrid Helium-3 catalised/Deuterium reactor has been proposed.

Deuterium-Helium3 is not completely a-neutronic, which is the only reason you want to go pure Helium3.

Its also the reason ESA/JAXA will be building the "Gas Station" on Pan. To get a reliable source of Helium-3.

[Ace Dreamer]

Can you maybe move the hardtech fusion a little bit further away? Would be nice if the whole effort to get the Whole Fenspace Catalogs Fusion Reactors by JAXA would not just be effortlessly beaten by reverse engineering a handwaved reactor without Handwavium.

A few years later (2018-2020), they might even be able to license/buy the design.

The only hardtech Fusion facility on Earth is the Meyrin Fusion Powerplant near C.E.R.N. which was a gift from the Fen (the Banzai Institute extracted the plans, Clark Universal Construction built it, the Browncoats supply the Helium-3) in 2014 (see here). It means the particle acccelerators can run all year and the spare energy can be used by Switzerland or France. This probably inspired JAXA.

The reason they have not become more widespread is that the only source of Helium-3 in any reasonable amount is the Fen, and some don't like having to rely on a single source. I.T.E.R. is focusing on Deuterium reactors, although a hybrid Helium-3 catalised/Deuterium reactor has been proposed.

ITER are also proposing 'breeding' tritium from neutrons and a lithium jacket around the fusion chamber.  Deuterium and lithium are readily obtainable, if they can make their own tritium so they don't rely on imported helium-3, doesn't the whole economics of it change?
http://www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[robkelk]

Ehm, do you have any clue how much 3 TW is?

It's over 180 times the entire hydroelectric output of all of the dams in the James Bay watershed - the largest power production complex in North America.

Personally, I'd prefer there be less weapons-grade, or near weapons-grade, enriched uranium about...

On a meta level, that's exactly why the Stellvians gathered up all of the easily-available fissionables before IslandCon - to take them out of the picture altogether.

There's nothing stopping anybody from mining for uranium (with the possible exception of Space Patrol oversight), but there isn't any uranium that "just happens" to be sitting around, waiting to be turned into a nuke.

Using a medium S-class AI to reverse engineer a design is unfair

Yeah, yeah... but, honestly, how many S-class AIs are there? (I can only think of one, and she's with the Soviets.)

*sigh* does this mean everyone in Fenspace has hardtech fusion in 2014? This kills parts of my ESA/JAXA story I would say. -.-

We've had the plans. That doesn't mean anybody's been able to actually build one before 2019.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Yeah, yeah... but, honestly, how many S-class AIs are there? (I can only think of one, and she's with the Soviets.)

I assumed that Dr. Bansai is somewhere in the low S-class if the Bansai Institute is that fast in reverse engineering.

We've had the plans. That doesn't mean anybody's been able to actually build one before 2019.

According to CG, Fenspace build one in 2014 as a gift.

[Ace Dreamer]

Using a medium S-class AI to reverse engineer a design is unfair

Yeah, yeah... but, honestly, how many S-class AIs are there? (I can only think of one, and she's with the Soviets.)

I'd guess there are quite a few weakly superhuman (Omega Class?) AIs around.  Probably at least half a dozen.  Dee is, I think, one of the few that is above that grade.
Emily, Brains first (failed?) boostrap attempt, is at least weakly superhuman, but she doesn't seem to be very active on the scene, except maybe as a member of Singularity Club.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Cobalt Greywalker]

OK, before this goes on too long:

1) As I said, the 'Danelaw didn't go for that reactor design mainly because of politics. The reason they gave was the Fen monopoly on He-3 production.
2) The Meyrin reactor covers the same sort of real estate as two (count 'em) Stellvias. It's not exactly a small thing.
3) The hybrid He-3/H-2 design was to use a He-3 reaction to ignite the H-2 reaction.

All in all, I can easily see JAXA being the ones to build a vehicle sized power-plant. The Fen have plenty of 'waved power sources to work with.

EDIT: Dee is the only S-class A.I. to publicly hint at being above the weakly superhuman level.

[HRogge]

OK, before this goes on too long:

1) As I said, the 'Danelaw didn't go for that reactor design mainly because of politics. The reason they gave was the Fen monopoly on He-3 production.
2) The Meyrin reactor covers the same sort of real estate as two (count 'em) Stellvias. It's not exactly a small thing.
3) The hybrid He-3/H-2 design was to use a He-3 reaction to ignite the H-2 reaction.

All in all, I can easily see JAXA being the ones to build a vehicle sized power-plant. The Fen have plenty of 'waved power sources to work with.

I can live and work with that...

and I can really see that Europe and Japan wants their own He-3 source. *G*

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, up until someone can crack through to making a hardtech fusion reactor that is as convenient to use, easy to refuel, safe to handle, and fits in the same package, as a typical 'waved power source, odds are it's not going to take over for the Fen for a while. Some larger installations might eventually put one together for their needs, but it certainly won't be common for decades.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[HRogge]

Yeah, up until someone can crack through to making a hardtech fusion reactor that is as convenient to use, easy to refuel, safe to handle, and fits in the same package, as a typical 'waved power source, odds are it's not going to take over for the Fen for a while. Some larger installations might eventually put one together for their needs, but it certainly won't be common for decades.

Europe, Japan (and maybe some other countries) will most likely only start increasing their usage of Fusion in 2022 and later, when the first Helium-3 arrives from Saturn.

[robkelk]

Okay, we've all had a chance to post timelines for our own sandboxes.

Let's move on to step 2: Does anybody have any problems with anything that anyone else has posted?

And we may as well start Step 3: What are the "NPC" group doing during Season Two? (I've tossed out a couple of ideas for the Senshi already...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Ace Dreamer]

How about this appearing early on in this time frame:
Thorium Safe - 18/Aug/2012
"Thorium Safe" is the name given to a range of wave-tech generators provided by "HH Engineering".  These use thorium nuclear fission as their power source, but are packaged as sealed units which only need more thorium every three to five years.  The fuel they use is unenriched, nor nuclear processed, thorium of sufficient chemical purity in pellet form.  They are considered pretty safe as they are tough, are not radioactive above background levels, and you know exactly where the power is coming from, as opposed to it being handwaved from some unclear source.
Integral to the generator is an expert system which checks the suitability of supplied fuel, and rejects it if unsuitable.  This system also checks the generator for damage, and reports if maintenance is required.  Generators have very tough externals and internals, including shock-proofing by acceleration-damping fields.  Allegedly you could drop one from Earth orbit and it would be blackened but still functioning when retrieved.  Unless you follow proper maintenance procedures you'd need a fusion torch to get into one of these.  If you want to sabotage one you can force it to shutdown by preventing it from dissipating heat; it will restart when it cools-off enough.
Integral to the generators are a set of capacitors and accumulators which provide for irregular power loads; about five times the steady power output for about fifteen minutes.  If there is an intermittent external power source, like regenerative braking, or solar panels, this can be connected to the generator to top-up its storage; there are automatic cut-outs to prevent the generator from receiving too much power in this way.
The bottom end of the range is the shoebox-sized "Thorium Safe: Home", which provides a steady 20kWe, for roughly 500kWe/day.  This masses 25kg.  Given reasonable insulation and passive cooling this provides all the power for home use anywhere in Fenspace for about twenty-five human-equivalents, including the life support systems, with a large safety factor (supposedly 100%, i.e. enough for fifty).  This power output is roughly equivalent to the engine output of a 2008 medium-sized hydrocarbon-fueled hard-tech car.  There is not enough power for more than irregular use of power tools, or more of a drive system than station keeping.  If this is the only thing powering your life support the supplier strongly recommends you have two of these, preferably kept a good distance apart.
Other generators in the range include the "Commercial", which is 50% more powerful and heavier, the "Light", "Medium" and "Heavy Industrial" which starts at 200kWe (1MWe peak) and 250kg mass, then works-up.  Custom models and specialist orders are possible.
What surprises many people is that these generators are highly consistent in how they work, and almost quirk-free.  The only notable quirk is that after about three years the generator starts audibly complaining "I'm hungry!", starting with a mumble, and rising to an almost unignorable whine as gets close to five years.  After five years power output from the generator drops to 10%, and it just moans quietly to itself; it's unclear how long a generator would maintain this without refueling, but it is probable it would completely shut-down no more than twenty years from the last full refueling.
Edit: I'm afraid I can't really get my head around a future time-line for the stories I might write.

--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[HRogge]

New beta of the ESA/JAXA timeline (will be extended in the "Gas Station" story). This one should be more compatible with ECSNorway's plans.

Fall 2013:
Serenity Con. Parts of the Catalog are published to Fenspace.

November 2013:
Several Daneverse organisation, including ESA and JAXA grab a copy of the Catalog for themselves.

December 2013:
ESA and JAXA have a secret meeting to discuss the ramifications of the Catalog. Together they draw up a plan for getting their governments to spend more money for space travel.

January 2014:
ESA and JAXA approach the governments of Japan and the EU with a proposal to supply both with a clean and cheap source of energy. After a week of discussion, both governments agree to channel more money into their space organizations.

Spring 2014:
With preliminary reverse engineering looking good, a large team of engineers begin the design of the Thor Heyerdahl.

Summer 2014:
Japan pays a group of Fen to deliver 15 gram of Helium-3. Some Fen “Saturn Divers” get pretty rich.

December 2014:
The new ‘high efficiency magnetic ion engine’ is tested successfully in a vacuum chamber.

February 2015:
The ‘Toshiba Electrostatic Stellarator’ produce energy for the first time.

March 2015:
Construction of the Thor Heyerdahl at ESAs orbital depot begins.

15. February 2016:
Maiden Flight of the Thor Heyerdahl to Mars

June 2016:
Based on the experience with the Thor Heyerdahl the construction of the Leif Erikson, the Ferdinand Magellan and the Nobu Shirase begins at Nouveau Paris.

April 2017:
Maiden Flight of the Leif Erikson to Venus. Thor Heyerdahl is called back to Nouveau Paris to modify its design to the other three ISVs.

July 2017:
Nobu Shirase leaves for their flyby mission to Saturn, taking a couple of scientific satellites with it.

10. November 2017:
Operation “Aurora 2017” launches from Nouveau Paris.

11. December 2017:
All four ISVs reach Saturn. All material is unloaded and the ISVs immediately leave again for Earth.

12. January 2018:
The four ISVs reach Nouveau Paris. After a checkup, they are loaded with more materials for the Saturn base.

20. February 2018:
Second batch of material reaches Saturn. The ISVs are sent back to have them at Earth if Saturn needs more deliveries.

19. April 2018:
Terror attack by ‘Green Fist’ on the construction site at Saturn. (Details to be delivered in story ^^)

November 2018:
Ferdinand Magellan delivers a first “symbolic” batch of 10 kg Helium-3 to Earth. Extraction is projected to increase over a few orders of magnitude in 2019.

Summer 2019:
The station on Saturn begins to extract Nitrogen gas from the atmosphere of Titan as reaction mass for the ISVs.

15. March 2022:
ESA and JAXA announce their plan to build a space elevator in South America together with AEB, the Brazilian Space Agency. The hope to finish the project by 2030.

[ECSNorway]

HRogge:

I've edited my earlier post to include the following based on discussions with you:

2015: SBA acquires TSAB notes on fusion retro-engineering project

2019: SBA/ESA-JAXA information exchange

2021: Island Fancy takes over production of Island habitats from SBA. All Island Fancy-produced habitats use fusion power plants. Fusion refits are offered for earlier SBA-produced units.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Norgarth]

On the topic of possible Boskone attacks on GC, Bab.5 is also at the Earth-Luna L3 point, and is undergoing a largescale defensive upgrade around the time of SerenityCon (lots of point defense guns, some larger weapons for shooting back, retractable armor over sensitive bits (where feasable), and a couple squadrons of MiniFury fighters).
They'd be quite willing to shift closer and help defend the Corners from attacks.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Bob Schroeck]

Which is very good to know.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Ace Dreamer]

If GC is interested, "HH Engineering" has a quite effective line of defensive garden gomes... These look to be made of painted concrete, doing the various things garden gomes do, but are in fact miniature defensive drones, with a variety of options, including leaping in the way of bullets, and a one-shot EMP grenade...

(They don't fight, they only defend - the handwavium is particular about that... One reason for this is you feel a lot safer about them being around children, and places where you live.)
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind