Can we add this to the list of possibilities for human colonies? Moon, Mars, Ceres. It has less gravity so bones would be harder to maintain but less of a gravity well to get out of after landing. All that water is pretty darn appealing for refueling. It is farther away so solar insolation is less but sounds like it still would be worth it.
Well Ceres only has a diameter of 589mi (a little over 1/4 the size of our moon). It might be a good launchpad for refueling though, given the near in-significant gravity and apparently plentiful water.
I'm looking at all the hydrogen laying around in the system in various forms, including water, and all I can think of is - energy. It's the stuff that powers the stars.
It certainly starts out fairly hard scifi (with the only exception being Epstein drives) but takes a pretty sharp turn away from that as soon as the proto-molecule is out and about. It was hard for me not to put the book away and stop reading the series when the zombies showed up because I was so engrossed in the realism behind the story that those parts just felt like a betrayal.
They are more fuel efficient than anything physics predicts is possible because they effectively have the max thrust of chemical rockets, combined with a nearly infinite ISP from using no reaction mass. They mention refueling the fusion reactors and the steam thrusters, but they never mention reaction mass for the Epstein drives.
Ignore the original story and the top level comments. Seems there is some evidence of reaction mass. There is some interesting analysis and basic math in the comments. I didn't see anything that confirmed or precluded the epstein drive from being possible. I should get out a pen and paper and work it out myself.
The show is reasonable (as are the novels) but the SyFy channel has a bad reputation for some truly awful television that they are only just starting to recover from.
Having said that, it is the only current sci-fi show that gets the physics of spaceflight more or less correct. ie: No 'gravity' without thrust or spin on board vessels or habitats.
I read the books first and then tried to watch the show and couldn't be behind it because in the books, you can physically tell where a person is from from their looks. Earthers are short and stout, Martians are a bit taller and Belters look like ETs with unnatural gangly limbs. It really brings home the racism themes in the books. Unfortunately the TV series couldn't do anything like that (understandably) and it just felt like so much was left out.
I watched the first episode and it was OK. Quit the second episode a few minutes in because it was a bit cheesy. Should I stick with it? Always wary of committing to a series and throwing away a dozen hours unless it's a really strong show.
The space-monsters angle doesn't last terribly long, basically just the first two books. The bulk of the series ends up being more of a political thriller. It reminds me a lot of Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, with some sprinklings of Frederick Pohl's Gateway series.
I really did enjoy the political angle of the show, which I thought was much more present than in the first book. I have the second book on my kindle, and I read the first couple of chapters... maybe I'll pick it up again.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 67.0 ms ] threadIf only we could master that damn fusion now.
Disclaimer: I've played a lot of Kerbal Space Program.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)
It's not, but it takes some inspiration
https://m.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/4frz1k/epstein_dr...
Ignore the original story and the top level comments. Seems there is some evidence of reaction mass. There is some interesting analysis and basic math in the comments. I didn't see anything that confirmed or precluded the epstein drive from being possible. I should get out a pen and paper and work it out myself.
Having said that, it is the only current sci-fi show that gets the physics of spaceflight more or less correct. ie: No 'gravity' without thrust or spin on board vessels or habitats.
I then read the book, and my suspicions were confirmed. But that's just me... I don't like space-monsters.
I really did enjoy the political angle of the show, which I thought was much more present than in the first book. I have the second book on my kindle, and I read the first couple of chapters... maybe I'll pick it up again.