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Post by Amistad on Dec 25, 2017 5:57:51 GMT
Hey, new here but played COADE for a little while. I'm not a massive science guy - more of a history/economics major. I was wondering about what the various planets of COADE would contribute, resource-wise. As in, what would each planet specialize in/import/export? For instance, would Mercury or Venus be good for industry due to various solar farms? Would the various Gas Giants be massive petrochemical farms? What about Titan with it's petro lakes?
If someone could do a planet-by-planet thing on what they'd "specialize" in, that'd be really cool.
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Post by bigbombr on Dec 25, 2017 9:47:44 GMT
Hey, new here but played COADE for a little while. I'm not a massive science guy - more of a history/economics major. I was wondering about what the various planets of COADE would contribute, resource-wise. As in, what would each planet specialize in/import/export? For instance, would Mercury or Venus be good for industry due to various solar farms? Would the various Gas Giants be massive petrochemical farms? What about Titan with it's petro lakes? If someone could do a planet-by-planet thing on what they'd "specialize" in, that'd be really cool. Mercury would be an industrial powerhouse because of it's abundance of solar power and metals. Venus would be less impressive as it's atmosphere and extreme heat make surface operations difficult, limiting mining potential. Venus might export carbon allotropes, but a lot of places have plenty of carbon. Titan might export polymers and carbon allotropes, but it might also be a hub for massive data processing. Generally speaking, most places would probably largely self-sustaining, especially if you have access to fusion. I recommend watching Isaac Athur's Outward Bound series, on his YouTube channel " Science and futurism with Isaac Arthur". |
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Post by Rocket Witch on Dec 25, 2017 21:54:38 GMT
Mercury would be an industrial powerhouse because of it's abundance of solar power and metals. In the context of CDE's setting, it's worth noting that Mercury lacks a surface population, implying a lack of surface industry. Relatively little of the expansion across the system has been economically motivated due to the Cataclysm. Well, technically finding a new home is an economic activity, but it's no gold rush. |
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Post by apophys on Dec 26, 2017 0:46:20 GMT
IMO, it's instructive to completely ignore CoaDE lore for this. The backstory is not scientifically realistic, and I'm not expecting the game's population estimates to be particularly accurate.
The main economic drivers would probably be energy, propellant, and raw materials. Specialty fabricated goods being shipped to large places will not really happen much, because every large destination will have its own production facilities, if only for recycling reasons.
That being the case, and assuming fusion doesn't get cracked soon, we have only one main type of ship for shipping: a bulk cargo or propellant hauler, using either solar powered or nuclear electric drives (for the fuel efficiency they bring). The propellants in ion drives can be more or less anything; the tech isn't very limiting.
So now we need cheap, easily accessible propellants.
In the inner solar system, there aren't many sources of mass that aren't locked down in deep gravity wells. Oxygen on Mercury or Luna can be baked out of rocks; this is one option, albeit energy-intensive to extract. Another possibility is CO2; the raw atmosphere of Venus is about 96% pure CO2, and this atmosphere is extremely plentiful. You can run atmospheric skimmer spaceplanes to gather CO2 and bring it to orbit in propellant depots.
CO2 has many advantages. You can store it in a dense form (dry ice). It is exhaled by crewmembers, so you can route that into your propellant tanks and just tank oxygen for their journey to avoid the mass of a Sabatier reaction system for recycling oxygen from CO2. Probably most important, CO2 (as dry ice) is very plentiful in the outer solar system in asteroids, comets, and moons. You can gently warm them to harvest it; dry ice sublimates easier than water ice melts. So engines built for CO2 propellant can be universally used.
Venus can very cheaply export bulk carbon dioxide propellant, carbon allotropes for construction, oxygen, sulfur, and possibly deuterium (the hydrogen there, what little there is, has an enhanced percentage of deuterium due to solar wind preferentially blowing the lighter protium away). It needs to import basically everything else. So expect a lot of trade action in orbit of Venus.
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