Runaway to the Stars: Page 167
Added 2024-11-20 12:57:00 +0000 UTCDeuterium is hydrogen with a freeloader neutron in its nucleus, making it about twice as heavy as a regular hydrogen. So heavy water, is, in fact, slightly heavier water.
Also, Dirtball's icecap wasn't pure heavy water. As in, not all of its water molecules contained deuterium, it just had an unusually high percentage. For perspective, Earth's oceans have about one atom of deuterium in every 6,420 atoms of hydrogen, and Dirtball's ice cap had about 3 times that density. So not all of the water this plant processes turns into fusion fuel, a large amount of its byproduct is boring regular hydrogen. In fact, the plant produces far more regular hydrogen than even oxygen gas.
Comments
The hand gestures Bip does with the lifter. I love them so damn much.
ClockworkC0rvus
2024-11-27 21:38:59 +0000 UTCRealizing I’d been mixing up “heavy water” with “hard water” this entire time
marineVerdancy
2024-11-25 16:51:57 +0000 UTCThe scale of the problem is hard to grasp. I am still anxious to see how they will leave the dirtball. Like once everything is repaired will they go "Whoops this is a fully functioning ship now. Byeeeeeee!"
SenGrisane
2024-11-23 08:28:18 +0000 UTCbip, i would report you to the authorities for that pun alone
feesh
2024-11-21 06:56:41 +0000 UTCAntimatter is prohibitively expensive to manufacture and contain, so it's not seen in use for spacecraft. I'm sure there's some helium-3 fusion rockets but iirc hydrogen and its isotopes are much more abundant atom than helium isotopes, so helium mining for fuel is a slightly more expensive endeavor.
Jay Eaton
2024-11-21 02:16:24 +0000 UTCPage looks great! Do ships use Helium-3 in this universe? Have some people tried to make antimatter for fuel or weapons? I got an idea once to use Jupiter's magnetic field as a giant particle accelerator to mass manufacture antimatter.
Erika Spooner
2024-11-21 01:14:02 +0000 UTCUnless they have a lot of surplus... which isn't really a thing you want, that's not something you can just "edit". Like... a heavy draw in one area will cause power failures or brown outs in others.
Marcus
2024-11-21 01:12:15 +0000 UTCThey've been talking about forging documents... so... I'm guessing they're forging the necessary paperwork so no one just looking at paperwork will notice. And since Talita is the yard boss the only person mentioned so far who would notice anything amiss (aside from our three main characters) is Mel on doing a geo-survey, if they notice the one missing ship from all the other ships lined up for scrapping... and I expect Bip will have scrubbed all mention of Runaway from all of Ixiom's records before they go, meaning Mel will be about the only person even really able to notice anything at all (unless Yao learns more about what Talita is up to - Yao is the only one so far to notice anything amiss, though I doubt they know that what they notice would be considered 'amiss').
Marcus
2024-11-21 01:10:49 +0000 UTCI have to wonder, admin will def notice when the runaway leaves on the launch loop. If the gang doesn’t intend to leave dirtball as well, then what do they intend to do when they’re caught? Surely ixion recycling won’t be happy about the massive loss of assets, even if it’s technically legal? Guess I’ll just have to wait and see haha
Krangis
2024-11-20 17:10:00 +0000 UTCAh, not just a criminal, but a PUNSTER! Why are you enabling this monster, Talita?
nbarnes
2024-11-20 16:28:18 +0000 UTCBip is like if my cat could talk back at me and not just glare when I give her the wrong food
Deneb
2024-11-20 15:49:12 +0000 UTCI understand now why Talita runs away to the stars…the puns got her 🤭
Bambi
2024-11-20 13:33:44 +0000 UTC*rimshot* I'm assuming Bip hasn't figured out how to edit the energy use logs.
Guilherme Töws
2024-11-20 13:23:53 +0000 UTC
