I haven’t read it, but Mike Combs has a new short story out.
12 thoughts on “New SF”
It’s a quick read. A paean for the L5 Society. If you love L5 you’ll love this. Was this story supposed to be Bezos vs Musk? I don’t see Bezos pushing SBSP, but the moon yes. I guess by extension cis-lunar space as well?
I think you could have left it after the first ****** because that’s where the science stops and the fantasy starts.
At the risk of hijacking the comments, the green tech that I think could really give SBSP a run for its money is geothermal. There really hasn’t been a whole lot of work done in this area, but the technology is at least extant. Deep well drilling isn’t a stretch and you don’t need to frack when all you are going for is a temperature delta. In fact fracking is the LAST thing you’d want to do in order to avoid anything that would expose your closed-cycle well casings to undue external pressures. Drill in an active geothermal zone and you don’t even have to go that deep, albeit you are subjecting yourself to the risk of earthquakes causing problems for your deep wells. But the ROI is potentially huge, non-polluting, available 24/7, very little startup cost using existing drilling technology, cheap maintenance, no new infrastructure required, ability to easily tie into existing grid with no huge footprint and power provided for less cost than getting non-renewable natural gas piped to your generator. Why we haven’t looked into scaling this up is beyond me. Of course the downside is if on the way down you hit contaminants such as oil and natural gas that poison your well. Need to avoid those. 🙂
Of course if you think the military is big enough to pay to bootstrap your SBSP operation versus terrestrial options, well there is the fiction part to SF. Maybe if you sold electrical power to ALL the world’s military? Love to see the domestic regulatory regime to support that…
Yeah I agree the economic case for Mars is weak. Right up until they day they discover unobtainum on Mars, or the flip side, cost effective He3 fusion that could bootstrap lunar regolith mining (see the movie: Moon). Hey, to me it’s just as realistic as the SBSP scenario right now.
Bottom line, I don’t buy easily into Utopia scenarios.
Thanks for the mention!
Mike, if Musk decides to make his Boring company vertically oriented maybe he could have both energy and Mars? (see above) 🙂
BTW, I only critique the idea not the story. Enjoyed the read. Keep ’em coming! Thanks!
… he could have both energy and Mars.
I was thinking energy on Earth and SpaceX to Mars. But if Mars is ‘geo’-thermal, well why not?
Of course assuming people don’t die off from weird ailments in 1/3g as Mike points out…
Mars has a solid core. Geothermal (or in this case Arethermal) won’t work if the core has cooled.
Arethermal. Sounds great even if non-existent. That’s why I made that conditional. I thought I had read that to be the case on Mars but wasn’t sure.
Thanks!
Characters were certainly designed to evoke Musk/Bezos. And I hope nobody is thinking I’m predicting Musk will go out of business. I’m only predicting that if Musk builds settlements on Mars, and Bezos in high orbit, the settlements on Mars will find themselves unable to economically compete with the ones in free space.
Oh, regarding SPS energy for forward military bases, I’m not the originator of that idea. It’s being promoted by Peter Garretson of the USAF. The Naval Research Lab has also expressed interest.
Is the military market enough to close the business case? Probably not, but as you say this is SF.
Nice little story by Mike which I think sums up where we are now. Musk has shown he can execute a plan but it may be the wrong one although at least it has a definite goal – settle Mars.
Bezos hasn’t executed much but wants industrial civilization in cis-lunar space, probably a better goal for all the reasons Mike outlines. Fortunately Starship will have the versatility for both.
David Spain, I’ve seen geothermal plants in New Zealand. The corrosion problems are horrific. There was another project in the north of South Australia. Again corrosion killed it and the company went broke. If you want reliable energy production where the problems can be controlled, go fission.
Mike B. where we differ is on the idea of how easy it might be to fix issues with corrosion vs. nuclear waste. I can’t speak for NZ and Australia but the regulatory environment here in the US has made the cost of new nuclear plants prohibitive. But that is a topic for another day. I do agree that nuclear waste *ought* to be reprocessed not buried and in either case these options are better for baseline power than wind and solar. Some people pin their hopes on batteries, but for running a utility grid I just don’t see it.
As for geothermal in the US “The Geysers” plant has been in operation since 1960 had was expanded to produce 1517 MW. Other plants are on the drawing boards across the US:
Oh it is easy to handle the corrosion issues – just keep replacing bits of the plant continuously, like in most “renewable” energy schemes. The “renewable” bit is the plants themselves.
Australia and NZ have a complete ban on nuclear although Australia has one small reactor for producing medical isotopes. The Greens want that shut down. The poor white trash of the South Pacific is what we are. Although at the rate we are importing the third world it will not be so for long and I don’t mean we won’t be poor.
Mike Combs, I’ve downloaded a bunch more of your stories. Thanks!
It’s a quick read. A paean for the L5 Society. If you love L5 you’ll love this. Was this story supposed to be Bezos vs Musk? I don’t see Bezos pushing SBSP, but the moon yes. I guess by extension cis-lunar space as well?
I think you could have left it after the first ****** because that’s where the science stops and the fantasy starts.
At the risk of hijacking the comments, the green tech that I think could really give SBSP a run for its money is geothermal. There really hasn’t been a whole lot of work done in this area, but the technology is at least extant. Deep well drilling isn’t a stretch and you don’t need to frack when all you are going for is a temperature delta. In fact fracking is the LAST thing you’d want to do in order to avoid anything that would expose your closed-cycle well casings to undue external pressures. Drill in an active geothermal zone and you don’t even have to go that deep, albeit you are subjecting yourself to the risk of earthquakes causing problems for your deep wells. But the ROI is potentially huge, non-polluting, available 24/7, very little startup cost using existing drilling technology, cheap maintenance, no new infrastructure required, ability to easily tie into existing grid with no huge footprint and power provided for less cost than getting non-renewable natural gas piped to your generator. Why we haven’t looked into scaling this up is beyond me. Of course the downside is if on the way down you hit contaminants such as oil and natural gas that poison your well. Need to avoid those. 🙂
Of course if you think the military is big enough to pay to bootstrap your SBSP operation versus terrestrial options, well there is the fiction part to SF. Maybe if you sold electrical power to ALL the world’s military? Love to see the domestic regulatory regime to support that…
Yeah I agree the economic case for Mars is weak. Right up until they day they discover unobtainum on Mars, or the flip side, cost effective He3 fusion that could bootstrap lunar regolith mining (see the movie: Moon). Hey, to me it’s just as realistic as the SBSP scenario right now.
Bottom line, I don’t buy easily into Utopia scenarios.
Thanks for the mention!
Mike, if Musk decides to make his Boring company vertically oriented maybe he could have both energy and Mars? (see above) 🙂
BTW, I only critique the idea not the story. Enjoyed the read. Keep ’em coming! Thanks!
… he could have both energy and Mars.
I was thinking energy on Earth and SpaceX to Mars. But if Mars is ‘geo’-thermal, well why not?
Of course assuming people don’t die off from weird ailments in 1/3g as Mike points out…
Mars has a solid core. Geothermal (or in this case Arethermal) won’t work if the core has cooled.
Arethermal. Sounds great even if non-existent. That’s why I made that conditional. I thought I had read that to be the case on Mars but wasn’t sure.
Thanks!
Characters were certainly designed to evoke Musk/Bezos. And I hope nobody is thinking I’m predicting Musk will go out of business. I’m only predicting that if Musk builds settlements on Mars, and Bezos in high orbit, the settlements on Mars will find themselves unable to economically compete with the ones in free space.
Oh, regarding SPS energy for forward military bases, I’m not the originator of that idea. It’s being promoted by Peter Garretson of the USAF. The Naval Research Lab has also expressed interest.
Is the military market enough to close the business case? Probably not, but as you say this is SF.
Nice little story by Mike which I think sums up where we are now. Musk has shown he can execute a plan but it may be the wrong one although at least it has a definite goal – settle Mars.
Bezos hasn’t executed much but wants industrial civilization in cis-lunar space, probably a better goal for all the reasons Mike outlines. Fortunately Starship will have the versatility for both.
David Spain, I’ve seen geothermal plants in New Zealand. The corrosion problems are horrific. There was another project in the north of South Australia. Again corrosion killed it and the company went broke. If you want reliable energy production where the problems can be controlled, go fission.
Mike B. where we differ is on the idea of how easy it might be to fix issues with corrosion vs. nuclear waste. I can’t speak for NZ and Australia but the regulatory environment here in the US has made the cost of new nuclear plants prohibitive. But that is a topic for another day. I do agree that nuclear waste *ought* to be reprocessed not buried and in either case these options are better for baseline power than wind and solar. Some people pin their hopes on batteries, but for running a utility grid I just don’t see it.
As for geothermal in the US “The Geysers” plant has been in operation since 1960 had was expanded to produce 1517 MW. Other plants are on the drawing boards across the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy_in_the_United_States
Oh it is easy to handle the corrosion issues – just keep replacing bits of the plant continuously, like in most “renewable” energy schemes. The “renewable” bit is the plants themselves.
Australia and NZ have a complete ban on nuclear although Australia has one small reactor for producing medical isotopes. The Greens want that shut down. The poor white trash of the South Pacific is what we are. Although at the rate we are importing the third world it will not be so for long and I don’t mean we won’t be poor.
Mike Combs, I’ve downloaded a bunch more of your stories. Thanks!