Mike wrote: > An option is small ships, run by independents, who can go in and make a > profit in areas that a large corps might not want to go into.. Have a > collection point in space for the miners to send their ore/by products and > it be collected by a large company/corps that also mines but larger scale.
Hello Mike, I see independents more as prospectors -- a small ship can go and collect data, with the main expense being the salary and health insurance for the crew. Their ship is cheap to operate because it is small and requires little reaction mass, and they don't have to return home until they run out of spare parts. I'm assuming 3E TL9 fusion rockets, which use water as reaction mass. The water can be found in the belt. Total life support works as a 100% closed loop according to those rules, too. A small ship will have no gravity and little rad shielding. For every freelancer who strikes it rich there are a dozen who end their career with brittle bones and cancer. But do you mine the asteroid for metals or do you bring it home? A 500-lb. mass driver engine with the necessary fusion reactor is 25 tons. Add a few tons for the rock cruncher and the mounting framework. A fusion rocket is more efficient, but will there be ice on every metal-bearing rock? Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
