The Expanse and its compatibility with OA

[AstroChara]

On Starlark: I thought the radiators have to be on almost immediately after turning on the engine....

Yes, but they won't work when the ship is stationary, and aren't deployed in the first few minutes of flight. The first few gigawatts are used to heat some of the water propellant into steam, adding a small amount of added delta vee.

From my experience (with Children of a Dead Earth), oxygen, and by extension, water, is a hilariously bad propellant for thermal rockets. If you need additional thrust, use hydrogen or methane instead of water. If you're an interstellar spacecraft, where delta-v is extremely important and thrust is of little concern, remove water propellant and turn on the radiator right from the beginning.

[Noclevername]

It may have been traditional to portray ships a certain way during part of this period, just as it was frowned on to show people smiling in portraits during the US Civil War era. Photorealism was not the goal of these portraits, they were stylized publicity pics.

The reaction against AI may even have played a role; introducing deliberate flaws in contrast with machine precision. Of course if precision was needed they had the option available, but it wasn't popular for personal entertainments.

Example: in my teen years, the trend in comic books was increasingly realistic, even painted artwork. Alex Ross, late stage Chris Claremont. But soon after, the predominant styles shifted to a highly stylized, cartoony drawing trend. Liefeld and the like. So changes in representation can go in and out of fashion.

[Drashner1]

Honestly, the discussion seems to be getting rather far afield here.

The reasons for the lack of radiator depictions in all images have been covered and it has been made clear that if anyone has an issue with a specific image they should bring it to our attention and we will consider addressing it in any of various fashions.

Steve has already addressed the Starlark image. The response has mainly consisted of variants of 'yes, but...' Which is not helpful in any real way.

Astronomer - if you have some specific course of action you would like us to consider in regards to the Starlark images, then please stop beating around the bush and just tell us what it is. We may do it or we may not - but get to the point, please.

Noclevername - Thank you for your efforts to rationalize the image(s) in question, but the proposed solution doesn't really fit with how we do things in OA.

Todd

[Noclevername]

Noclevername - Thank you for your efforts to rationalize the image(s) in question, but the proposed solution doesn't really fit with how we do things in OA.

Todd

OK.

[Noclevername]

New topic besides spaceships;

I was wondering about the plausibility of icy Ceres running out of water. Since the Expanse universe somehow avoided Von Neumann machines or extensive automation, presumably Belters did most of the mining, processing, and shipping of water ice and volatiles to Mars.

Given the Belter population and the time frame given, could this scenario realistically have stripped the dwarf planet of all its water? If not, what might need to be done or added to make it fit with Expanse canon?

Note: I have not read the books, maybe this is addressed in that setting.

[AstroChara]

Astronomer - if you have some specific course of action you would like us to consider in regards to the Starlark images, then please stop beating around the bush and just tell us what it is. We may do it or we may not - but get to the point, please.

Alright, I'll stop beating around the (nonexistent) space bush: I demand a Starlark pic with dem glorious radiators (disclaimer: jk). Thanks in advance 

...now, back to Expanse. It is shown that the ships in that universe mainly fights with generic kinetic weapons(!!!) In other words, plain ol' guns, which, between lasers (we already have them) and particle beams (physics all worked out, in development), I don't think would be very useful at all, except maybe as a last ditch attempt to fight off enemy in close-range (no real advantages, however), if you want low-power weapons (which is totally unneeded, since all proper warships should be able to at least afford a fission reactor or two, and those often provides more than enough power for lasers), or if both lasers and particle beams, for some reason, are banned.
Now, if you, by any chance, play Children of a Dead Earth, you might point lasers' low efficiency and their inability to run hot resulting in them requiring hilariously big radiators, but real life military lasers are over 40% efficient, so that point is kind of...iffy.

[Drashner1]

New topic besides spaceships;

I was wondering about the plausibility of icy Ceres running out of water. Since the Expanse universe somehow avoided Von Neumann machines or extensive automation, presumably Belters did most of the mining, processing, and shipping of water ice and volatiles to Mars.

Given the Belter population and the time frame given, could this scenario realistically have stripped the dwarf planet of all its water?  If not, what might need to be done or added to make it fit with Expanse canon?

Note: I have not read the books, maybe this is addressed in that setting.

Unlikely,unless Mars was fully terraformed and all the water was shipped in from Ceres (and maybe not even then). A bit of googling turns up that Ceres is believed to consist of as much as 25% water - approx 2.35e20kg which works out to be about 1/6 of the mass of Earth's oceans (volume - gotta love it).

I've not read the books either, but my sense from the TV show is that the tech level of the Expanse setting may not even be up to terraforming, let alone having completed it already by the time the story starts. The more so if they don't have neumanns and such.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'Expanse Canon' - please elaborate.

Water is valuable to a solar civ and Ceres could certainly mine and export the stuff all over the place - but I don't see them as having mined the place dry based on my (admittedly very limited) understanding of that setting.

Todd

[AstroChara]

I'm pretty sure Expanse was written before we discover that half of Ceres is actually made out of water. The author acknowledged that and even wrote an essay (...or, well, whatever you call it) on that.

Speaking about dry Ceres, in EG the 'Cerean' class planetoid is still described as 'rock dwarf'. Might want to change that. If anybody's interested, they could make a new thread in General Setting.

[Noclevername]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'Expanse Canon' - please elaborate.

The established facts of the setting as already shown on the screen. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(fiction)

[stevebowers]

I was torn between using frozen hydrogen in the Starlark and water.(This is a spaceship adapted from one I designed nearly fifty years ago, in my teens). I can change it to hydrogen, as this is more abundant than methane.

Either way the propellant needs to be heated before it can be used; the rocket motor isn't lit until the ship is far from the Sun, since most of the early acceleration is due to a boostbeam/magsail combo. When the ship is decelerating at the destination, once again it is far from any star (having used a magbrake to loose much of its momentum). In both cases the fuel and propellant will be very cold, and the initial heat from the rocket can be dumped into the fuel and propellant tanks.