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Zaphod42 posted:What resources though? ...food? You may actually be misunderstanding some fundamental things about space travel, and I don't mean that in an rear end in a top hat-ish way. Basically, if you're doing stuff in space, then you want your resources to come from space. Lifting out of a gravity well like Earth is insanely expensive in terms of fuel cost, so once you're already in space you don't want to to transporting heavy things like iron into orbit. Mars wouldn't need resources like that because it would already have them, but if for some reason Mars needed water then it makes way, way, way more sense to get it from asteroids than from Earth. Basically, the core thing to remember about space is that it's super cheap to move around in once you're already up there. It's the transition from big gravity wells like Earth into space that's difficult. The Epstein drive kind of fucks with that a little bit, but it's understandable that things are how they are if everything predates its discovery. Edit- The same also goes for shipbuilding. If you have a shipyard and refining facilities and other things in orbit or sitting near an asteroid, then building spaceships up there with resources from the asteroids is the most efficient, logical thing to do. Building a spaceship in orbit around Earth is actually kind of dumb if you have another option because breaking Earth orbit is so much more costly if you want to go anywhere else.
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Jan 28, 2016 00:04
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The IRA analogy isn't bad. The OPA made him their point-of-contact with Earth's government because, as a former Earth military officer who really did kill a poo poo-ton of Belters, Earth will listen to him. In public, he's simply an Earth citizen who works as the construction foreman for Tycho on the Nauvoo generation ship project, but privately he is the leader of the OPA's political wing, sort of like Sinn Fein in space, because he has legitimacy with both Earth and the Belt. Dawes runs the direct-action and wetwork stuff. However, it's a big organization and isn't fully under the control of either one of them.
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Jan 28, 2016 00:12
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Aemos's nod of approval 
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Jan 28, 2016 00:18
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I liked how Amos was chomping at the bit to blow the Anubis up as soon as they got back. I haven't read the books so this is speculation on my part, but all of my scifi watching experience tells me that it's probably a bad thing to nuke a phenomenon that thrives on energy output.
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Jan 28, 2016 00:41
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Paradoxish posted:You may actually be misunderstanding some fundamental things about space travel, and I don't mean that in an rear end in a top hat-ish way. Basically, if you're doing stuff in space, then you want your resources to come from space. Lifting out of a gravity well like Earth is insanely expensive in terms of fuel cost, so once you're already in space you don't want to to transporting heavy things like iron into orbit. Mars wouldn't need resources like that because it would already have them, but if for some reason Mars needed water then it makes way, way, way more sense to get it from asteroids than from Earth. Mars' gravity is much less than Earth's, but its non-zero, so if it doesn't make sense to build things on Earth, then it doesn't make sense to build things on Mars either. Its not that I'm "misunderstanding" anything, its just catching up on what state this series' world is in exactly. If you have Star Trek transporters, then the gravitational pull of the Earth is entirely irrelevant for transportation of building materials. Okay? So lets stop with the "you must be misunderstanding" stuff. There's a ton of variables and things to think about for potential reasons why they might do this or that. Please don't pretend like its all extremely obvious and nothing else is possible. Paradoxish posted:Edit- The same also goes for shipbuilding. If you have a shipyard and refining facilities and other things in orbit or sitting near an asteroid, then building spaceships up there with resources from the asteroids is the most efficient, logical thing to do. Building a spaceship in orbit around Earth is actually kind of dumb if you have another option because breaking Earth orbit is so much more costly if you want to go anywhere else. You're telling me things I already know. I already said that earlier trying to make sense of things. I mean for that matter why not build ships on the moon? It has industrial resources. Its been considered in the past many times. It has less gravity than Mars and its way closer to Earth than the Belt. That's why I was thinking it was going to be some new rare element possibly, because you could say the Moon just doesn't have it. But if its just Iron and Copper, The moon has that. Yes, if they're already in the Belt, then all that makes sense. But why even go to the belt in the first place? That was part of my question. Why not build around Mars or the Moon or the Earth? Each has challenges, but so does the Belt. They haven't been clear in the show about the limits of their transportation technology yet (the book probably makes it clearer) but we know that travelling from Earth to the Belt still takes a very long time, they don't have anything remotely approaching FTL yet. Then there's the question of the costs to get people out to the Belt, and you'd have to transport all the manufacturing materials to build the factories unless you're bootstrapping them with smaller foundries, but even those will need some parts. E: Maybe not the moon because of the ice problem? Easier to trawl for ice in the belt than to launch it from Earth up to the Moon. You'd think you could just ship a ton of water and then recycle it from there though... Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 00:46
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Good show.
bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 01:06
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:I'm sure this will only enrage you further, but you really need to calm down. Nobody was rude to you, you asked questions that would indicate you know little to nothing about space travel so people responded accordingly. I did just edit my post to be less defensive (before you posted that), but nothing about "are they mining nuclear material, base metals, or un-obtainium?" has anything to do with knowledge of space travel. There's a ton of variables in the setting that have nothing to do with physics, which is what most of my questions were about.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:09
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Zaphod42 posted:I did just edit my post to be less defensive (before you posted that), but nothing about "are they mining nuclear material, base metals, or un-obtainium?" has anything to do with knowledge of space travel. There's a ton of variables in the setting that have nothing to do with physics, which is what most of my questions were about.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:18
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I'd assume that the as of yet unknown faction trying to cause a war using stealth ships are the terrorists. So far the belters haven't done anything in-show to warrant them being called that, aside from that one miner who threw some rocks. I'm sure they'll get to it soon enough. Also the thing about mining in space is that you done really have to 'mine' a lot of the time in the traditional sense. You just crush up a rock a little bit at a time. Assuming we can figure out poo poo like how to smelt in space, once we're up there it'll (probably) be easier and cheaper to get everything from there and drop it down rather than dig a single new hole in Earth or Mars. Yes, iron and copper included.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:22
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bull3964 posted:I liked how Amos was chomping at the bit to blow the Anubis up as soon as they got back. Considering every decision Holden has made up to this point has turned out comically wrong, why not this one too?
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Jan 28, 2016 01:28
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Zaphod42 posted:I did just edit my post to be less defensive (before you posted that), but nothing about "are they mining nuclear material, base metals, or un-obtainium?" has anything to do with knowledge of space travel. There's a ton of variables in the setting that have nothing to do with physics, which is what most of my questions were about. * Water (yes, really) * Rare elements like iridium, gallium, etc... even platinum and gold would be more cost effective to mine in the belt at the time this is set (assuming surface mining has exhausted mines) * Common elements like iron, nickel, aluminum, etc. would be more cost effective outside of a gravity well. It's cheaper to ship from the belt to Mars and Earth than lifting into orbit from either. * Food from hydroponic farms (again, water availability). Remember Mars is still being terraformed, so water and food would still need to be imported from the belt. And Earth needs to support 30 billion people. There's not enough arable surface to support that many people. * Manufacturing - your factories are by your raw materials. A huge savings in operational costs. The biggest thing to remember is they have no space magic like hyperspace, transporters or warp engine in the setting of this show. The hyper-efficiency of the Epstein drive is the closest to magic they have. Everything else is pretty grounded in practical, applied science. Some of it can't be realized today, more from an engineering perspective than from a "is it possible" one. Some of it is too difficult to represent without it being totally confusing to viewer or outstripping the FX budget. When it comes to the primary conflict of the plot (as we understand it so far). Earth and Mars are in an uneasy peace/cold war. Primarily because Mars was an Earth colony that declared independence and made it stick. The resources of the Belt are owned by Earth corporations or by Mars directly, so fall under UN or Mars jurisdiction. The corporations look to maximize profits, so they ship resources out of the Belt and sell to people who will pay top dollar. Or in the case of Mars, the Belt supplies much needed resources for the terraforming projects. They also charge the workers for the resource they need to live: air, water and food. Basically, the Belters see little benefit from their labor and are fed up. Hence the OPA. Some in the OPA look to Anderson as a leader. A link back to Earth and to a lesser extent Mars to work diplomatically and economically for independence. Others follow Dawes who believe violent dissent and insurrection will make it too expensive for Earth, Mars and corps forcing capitulation. The whole situation with the three is propped up by a pile of dried out kindling. When Holden sent out his message, he lit the match. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 01:32
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Asteroid mining is already on its way to being a reality anyways http://www.space.com/15395-asteroid-mining-planetary-resources.html
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Jan 28, 2016 01:44
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:I'm just assuming that any celestial body that has the possibility of being visited by humans has been stripmined into a hollowed out shell. Earth included, though there are always resources left for the rich. Nobody builds things on-planet, or on-moon because it would mean mining materials elsewhere, bringing them to planet/moon, then flying away from that planet/moon afterwards. Fighting gravity the entire way as you do so, even if the gravity is weak. So you think the moon is already totally mined to death? That'd make sense. I'm trying to establish how much time has gone by and how much has already been done to lead to this point. It does seem like there's already a ton of people living in space, generations have lived all their lives in space, and there's a lot of ships out there, so that does mean a whole lot has been done. I'm just trying to play catchup on what has and hasn't. NmareBfly posted:I'd assume that the as of yet unknown faction trying to cause a war using stealth ships are the terrorists. So far the belters haven't done anything in-show to warrant them being called that, aside from that one miner who threw some rocks. I'm sure they'll get to it soon enough. So, terrorists who aren't the OPA then? Yeah I was thinking about a 4th human faction, but the thing is the captain of the Dauntless really made it seem like their flagship of the Martian navy was indestructible, they'd dealt with pirates before without issue. And then they were handily beaten, not just at long range but in QCB with their railguns firing. They were taken apart. Nobody, even Mars, has that kind of budget. So how could some "terrorists" afford that? Which is why I'm thinking its aliens. But I kinda hope its not actually aliens. The blue good stuff is also making me think of like, a sentient nanomachine swarm or something. So maybe artificially created life gone haywire? They were human soldiers though. But could have been under mind control or something? We saw the blue goo absorb one guy... flosofl posted:Why Asteroids: Yeah water makes sense, I was just saying that asteroids have an advantage over the moon because of water. And yeah, stuff like gold was my first thought for non-nuclear non-fantasy materials you'd want from space. Food you'd think would still be easier to grown on Earth, but yeah Earth has a huge population so I guess they can't export, and that's a good point about Mars needing import on food. But then if you're growing food for Earth, it'd be easier to do it in space stations orbiting Earth I would think, then shipping them would be closer-- Ah, but again you need water. And neither space or the moon have water. You could ship some up from Earth and re-use it, but a lot of it would go into the food. You could de-hydrate the food before you ship it down to Earth and then use Earth water to re-hydrate the food... lots of variables in the cost-benefit analysis on that versus shipping big foodstuffs all the way from the Belt  flosofl posted:The biggest thing to remember is they have no space magic like hyperspace, transporters or warp engine in the setting of this show. The hyper-efficiency of the Epstein drive is the closest to magic they have. Everything else is pretty grounded in practical, applied science. Some of it can't be realized today, more from an engineering perspective than from a "is it possible" one. Some of it is too difficult to represent without it being totally confusing to viewer or outstripping the FX budget. Right. I'm trying to also figure out exactly what all they do have though, I guess I'll just read up the wiki. (or maybe I should just start reading the book) Because the show hasn't spelled too much of that out yet; although I generally much prefer it that way. We saw that they have those chemicals for surviving G-forces, that's one kind of magic technology. But in general its very hard sci-fi, very grounded, and I like that. So now my question is what exactly does the Epstein drive do, so I'll just go google that. flosofl posted:When it comes to the primary conflict of the plot (as we understand it so far). Earth and Mars are in an uneasy peace/cold war. Primarily because Mars was an Earth colony that declared independence and made it stick. The resources of the Belt are owned by Earth corporations or by Mars directly, so fall under UN or Mars jurisdiction. The corporations look to maximize profits, so they ship resources out of the Belt and sell to people who will pay top dollar. Or in the case of Mars, the Belt supplies much needed resources for the terraforming projects. They also charge the workers for the resource they need to live: air, water and food. Basically, the Belters see little benefit from their labor and are fed up. Hence the OPA. Some in the OPA look to Anderson as a leader. A link back to Earth and to a lesser extent Mars to work diplomatically and economically for independence. Others follow Dawes who believe violent dissent and insurrection will make it too expensive for Earth, Mars and corps forcing capitulation. The whole situation with the three is propped up by a pile of dried out kindling. This is making me think that the blue-faced enemy are in fact some kind of Illuminati corporate overlords who realized that war would be the best thing for them economically or something.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:47
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Hey book readers, do Lagrange points ever factor into anything? Just a yes or no, that's my hard SF huckleberry.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:55
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Chard posted:Hey book readers, do Lagrange points ever factor into anything? Just a yes or no, that's my hard SF huckleberry. I'm in the fourth book and I don't really remember them talking about those. It's been a while since I read the first two though.
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Jan 28, 2016 02:04
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Zaphod42 posted:So now my question is what exactly does the Epstein drive do, so I'll just go google that. The short of it is, its basically a hyper-efficient rocket engine. It allows ships to maintain constant acceleration, which makes the Brachistochrone trajectories (i.e. straight line) linked to earlier in the thread possible. It also makes it so not every scene on a ship has to be done in zero g, since the decks are oriented so the constant drive acceleration provides gravity. tooterfish fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 02:07
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah water makes sense, I was just saying that asteroids have an advantage over the moon because of water. And yeah, stuff like gold was my first thought for non-nuclear non-fantasy materials you'd want from space. Zaphod42 posted:Right. I'm trying to also figure out exactly what all they do have though, I guess I'll just read up the wiki. (or maybe I should just start reading the book) Because the show hasn't spelled too much of that out yet; although I generally much prefer it that way. Zaphod42 posted:This is making me think that the blue-faced enemy are in fact some kind of Illuminati corporate overlords who realized that war would be the best thing for them economically or something. 
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Jan 28, 2016 02:09
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Zaphod42 posted:So, terrorists who aren't the OPA then? Yeah I was thinking about a 4th human faction, but the thing is the captain of the Dauntless really made it seem like their flagship of the Martian navy was indestructible, they'd dealt with pirates before without issue. And then they were handily beaten, not just at long range but in QCB with their railguns firing. They were taken apart. Donnager, not Dauntless, and they gave back pretty hard. quote:So now my question is what exactly does the Epstein drive do, so I'll just go google that. According to the authors, the answer to this question is "works very well" 
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Jan 28, 2016 02:12
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Polaron posted:Donnager, not Dauntless, and they gave back pretty hard.  I'm so bad with names. They did give back very hard, you would expect as much, but still, as far as anybody knew that was the most powerful ship in the system. So for them to be defeated and fairly quickly, its a big deal. You'd need a massive economy in order to pay for and develop that kind of technology.The stealth tech could have just been stolen from Mars, but that ship that blew up Donnager... at the very least somebody with a ton of money stole mars' designs and implemented them at even greater scale. But possibly independent development which means even more required infrastructure. flosofl posted:I didn't address any of your speculations as right or wrong for obvious reasons. And I won't. But just watch and enjoy as it unfolds. Or read the books Appreciate it. I'm looking for clarification on what the show has said that I might have missed or what the books made clear about what's going on right now, not spoilers for what we're going to find out in the future. My comments on that are just speculation and meant for discussion with other people who haven't read the books. Its a little tricky line to walk. Like somebody said in the first or second post of the thread, its gonna be hard to keep out book spoilers like GOT. But hey. (I ended up reading ASOIAF anyways...) Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 03:03
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Zaphod42 posted:The stealth tech could have just been stolen from Mars, but that ship that blew up Donnager... at the very least somebody with a ton of money stole mars' designs and implemented them at even greater scale. But possibly independent development which means even more required infrastructure.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:07
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Nah I'm just guessing for the point of discussion. I enjoy the mystery they're building and I can wait to see why. Thanks for the spoiler tag.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:08
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If the season ends where everyone hints at, and the season 2 date is true, you'll be waiting a long time. --edit: Actually, pisses me off already that it continues in 2017. What are the ratings like meanwhile, anyway? Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 03:11
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Chard posted:Hey book readers, do Lagrange points ever factor into anything? Just a yes or no, that's my hard SF huckleberry. I don't remember which book, but isn't there a mention at some point of Mao's private station at L5?
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Jan 28, 2016 03:11
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Other resources in demand from the belt: lithium, molybdenum, and tungsten, all necessary to make the setting's tech work and all mostly depleted on Earth generations before the show starts.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:18
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Space mormons are pretty annoying
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Jan 28, 2016 03:23
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Toast Museum posted:Other resources in demand from the belt: lithium, molybdenum, and tungsten, all necessary to make the setting's tech work and all mostly depleted on Earth generations before the show starts. Not to mention helium 3, which we're already running out of.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:23
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xsf421 posted:Not to mention helium 3, which we're already running out of. But my party balloons!
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Jan 28, 2016 03:26
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withak posted:I don't remember which book, but isn't there a mention at some point of Mao's private station at L5?   Chard fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 03:32
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I really dug how tense the buildup to the shootout was. Very well done. Looking forward to next week for sure. Really glad they are running a two-parter to wrap the season up.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:33
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Tortolia posted:I really dug how tense the buildup to the shootout was. Very well done. Yeah, the tension was really ratcheted up this episode. I kept wanting to yell: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET THE gently caress OFF THAT SHIP THERE'S SPACE BOOGERS ON IT!
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Jan 28, 2016 03:39
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Chard posted:Hey book readers, do Lagrange points ever factor into anything? Just a yes or no, that's my hard SF huckleberry. I think you see them (in practice) on a couple of the orbit schematics that pop up, but I may have been interpreting something not there. e: that is to say, though you might not see them explicitly used it's clear objects are travelling from one gravity well to another, and orbiting them properly. If you want a book which laboriously explains orbital concepts, including Lagrange points, at the expense of compelling characters however, I'd recommend Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. You'll want to throw it into orbit at some point near page 700, but that's another story. Khablam fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 03:40
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Khablam posted:I think you see them (in practice) on a couple of the orbit schematics that pop up, but I may have been interpreting something not there. If I'm recalling correctly, the Dragon's Egg books by Robert L Forward, he goes on quite a bit about them. If you want HARD science fiction, this is your dude. I'm not sure if any of his stuff is still in print, but he's definitely worth a trip to the library. He was researcher in what wikipedia says was the "leading edges of speculative physics". He had a big brain. Wikipedia posted:He worked on such projects as space tethers and space fountains, solar sails (including Starwisp), antimatter propulsion, and other spacecraft propulsion technologies, and did further research on more esoteric possibilities such as time travel and negative matter. He was issued a patent for the statite, and contributed to a concept to drain the Van Allen Belts. He also invented the Forward Mass Detector which is: Wikipedia posted:Essentially, two beams are crossed over and connected with an axle through their crossing point. They are held at right angles to each other by springs. They have heavy masses at the ends of the beams, and the whole assembly spun around the common axle at high speed. The angle between the beams is measured continuously, and if it varies with a period half that of the rotation period, it means that the detector is experiencing a measurable gravitational field gradient. I was a big fan of his when I was HS and College. I still am.
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Jan 28, 2016 03:56
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flosofl posted:Yeah, the tension was really ratcheted up this episode. I kept wanting to yell: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET THE gently caress OFF THAT SHIP THERE'S SPACE BOOGERS ON IT! Blue space boogers! And now black spore dermatitis. Space is weird man.
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Jan 28, 2016 04:18
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Tortolia posted:I really dug how tense the buildup to the shootout was. Very well done. I liked how Amos was able to read the whole ambush before it happened. Episode was pretty much perfect
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Jan 28, 2016 04:41
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The best thing from the series is "the juice". The best part is every time Alex casually says "here comes the juice" as if it doesn't contain enough amphetamines and pain killers to make most people puke their first time. He says he is addicted to flying but I think his true love is that sweet sweet juice. I don't know if they will ever go into full detail in the show because none of the characters actually know how it works fully. The books go into great detail about how it works on the human body and when G forces start to overcome its effects.bull3964 posted:I liked how Amos was chomping at the bit to blow the Anubis up as soon as they got back. Nuking it from orbit is the ONLY way to be sure! 
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Jan 28, 2016 04:49
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The thing about the Donnager was that they were jumped by like SIX ships, not one. Before their reactor poo poo itself, the Donnager still managed to take out like, what, 4 of them? And they were just as heavily armed as the Donnager was with PDS, Missiles and railguns. Wolf-pack tactics are loving nasty poo poo.
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Jan 28, 2016 04:54
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I'm digging the quality of the production especially the big sets and how they actually hired piles of extras to make the station scenes feel alive.
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Jan 28, 2016 05:04
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etalian posted:I liked how Amos was able to read the whole ambush before it happened. Yeah, I said it before but I feel like the show kinda wants me to look down on Amos but right now he's one of my favorite characters. Holden has gotten really annoying. Kamal, Nagata and Miller are all really cool characters too. Just getting Ted Mosby vibes from Holden. I really liked the camera-eye on the spy dude, and how careless the crew was talking around him. Kurr de la Cruz posted:The thing about the Donnager was that they were jumped by like SIX ships, not one. Before their reactor poo poo itself, the Donnager still managed to take out like, what, 4 of them? And they were just as heavily armed as the Donnager was with PDS, Missiles and railguns. Wolf-pack tactics are loving nasty poo poo. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. The radar did seem to have more than one craft on it, and I guess the idea was that Mars felt their flagship wouldn't be threatened? Still, the captain seemed really confident and then everything took a huge turn, whoever those ships is, they have power.
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Jan 28, 2016 05:08
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Man this was a good episode, maybe the best. I almost wish they had cut the Avasarala scene though since it kinda broke the tension and it wasn't so pertinent that it couldn't have been saved for next week. Miller's entrance was so loving good holy poo poo
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Jan 28, 2016 05:14
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah, I guess that makes sense. The radar did seem to have more than one craft on it, and I guess the idea was that Mars felt their flagship wouldn't be threatened? Still, the captain seemed really confident and then everything took a huge turn, whoever those ships is, they have power. There's an entire bit of dialogue relating to the Donnager's sensor tech realizing that what they thought was one ship was actually five or six.
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Jan 28, 2016 05:17
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