Why? The mass driver is built on Mt. Kilimandjaro. It does not need an asteroid.


Your link, so far as I read it (till section 3), gave a sufficiently well researched how, but no why. Of course, it also assumed very favourable conditions and a surge to space that would make huge fleets of it'S vehicles viable.

I'll reread it later today, when it is not 0200 am and I am not dead tired. Maybe I missed the why somewhere.


Nachtmeister =/= Lofwyr. Lofwyr killed the guy, actually.

hi hi


I misread your post, my bad.

For a more immediate reason why:
- Obstacles to Financing New Space Industries

I guess I get a different perspective being related to people who are rocket scientists, but it has been my experience that there are a lot of companies that would like to participate in operations in space if only they could afford the lifting cost, or overcome international regulations.

It was a direct quote from the PDF you linked. I know Lofwyr doesn't equal Nachtmeister.

how to make asteroid mining economical:

1. hire scientists to look through the reams of data on known asteroids and pick out some with high probabilities of being nickle-iron. Also, the subjects need to be a near earth object or fairly permanent in the asteroid belt. Certainly nothing that spends time out in the oort cloud.

2. Build small cheap probes to analyze asteroids. The probes need to be able to measure the outside surface optically. The probes need to be able to land on an asteroid and conduct analysis of the surface material and possibly a drill (maybe laser drill) to take subsurface samples. The probes should be able to do seismic measurements to determine if the asteroid is one solid mass or a pile of junk.

3. determine the best subject. It should be one big lump of metal or darned close, junk piles could be problematic in many ways.

4. Build a space tug. The tug should be run on a fusion or fission core and have very high velocity exhaust (Hall effect or thermal excitation would be something to determine) there should be many main thrusters that can direct their exhaust at high angles from each other to avoid throwing exhaust directly behind the space vehicle. The tug should be automated and not need humans nor have humans on it during main operation.

5. Send tug out to collect asteroid. The method is not to affix a physical connection between the asteroid and vehicle. Instead the vehicle should go to a distance from the asteroid and maintain that distance with thrusters. Gravity will pull the two objects together and the thrusters will hold them apart giving a net force to the space vehicle asteroid system in the direction the vehicle is trying to go. The closer the vehicle is to the asteroid the more the pull. Note this is VERY slow at first, but the most stable way to tow large bodies in space. It will pull about the same across the whole asteroid so any fractures or weak spots will not be stressed. Practice to ensure proper maneuvering (highly nonhoffoman transfers) could be done on small asteroids or blocks of moon rock ~20 meters across.

The payoff would not be fast, but as has been mentioned before SK is run by a dragon. I've never heard of a dragon being limited to only short term gains. The biggest economic benefit for a long view would be simply selling metal to orbital manufacturers. Why would this work economicaly? if one tows a 1kilometer across asteroid into orbit they just brought in roughly 7 Gigatons of Nickle Iron alloy into orbit where the previous price for anything lifted into orbit was $10,000/kg. That gives Trillions of nuyen worth of material even when one considers much lower prices such as 1 nuyen per kg. The same could later be applied to other near earth bodies that have mix of elements more needed for life such as carbon and water. I would estimate this would be a 10-20 year project to start seeing any real benefits, but such long term projects are done all the time and sometimes even longer. This would not be an overnight change to SR it would certainly not become star trek. It would be probably background and maybe a source for a few runs. Heck it could be used to build a huge habitat for any of those neato horror and other conspiracies I keep hearing mentioned.

Nickel-Iron asteroids, from what I've gathered, are fairly common.

Better off looking for ones containing water or other minerals as well, such as possible radioactive elements.

And before someone says there is not even close to enough demand to justify that here's the thing when you reduce the price on a product it has a good chance of creating demand. We humans love using available resources. And if you doubt that still just look into the history of any other expensive resource that suddenly became cheap like steel and aluminum.

hi hi

Also: Gold Rush in Space via BBC

Common or not as common in the asteroid belt is not the desire. The thing ya want is something that is not in big supply around earths orbit and without metal its hard to build something that would need water.

Do we have anyone fluent in astrophysics here who might know something about the relative spread of accessible materials in the inner system? And does anyone know where we could find references on costs?

@IceKatze: I notice they only mention operating revenue. How does that relate to stock-holder profit? I've got an accounting textbook around here somewhere...

we have physics and optics at least.

references on costs? for what?
spread of accessible materials in the inner system? As in how many? if you are wondering about the number per volume, it doesn't matter. All ya need is one and as long as it is easy to get to from an energy perspective its easy to get to.

-- They bring up a significant problem with the plan of simply hauling an asteroid back to Earth and raking in the nuyen:

-- What capturing a NEO would allow is dramatically cheaper space development though. And we know they can do this in Shadowrun because they already have captured one and are hauling it back for use as the orbital elevator counterweight.

yea, but its going to become destabilized once used and either break free or crash to earth. Or at least that's what happens every time I try to simulate the system. Everyone seems to forget about conservation of momentum that gets embodied in what we call the Coriolis force.

-- It's a huge engineering hurdle, but I'm never heard of anyone arguing it was physically impossible.
-- The Shadowrun tether is still in the planning stages. I think the writers left it for future books to explain how it's supposed to work in a world where corporations routinely blow each others stuff up.

I guess costs, as in sheer dollar amounts, isn't what I'm looking for as much as an idea of what technologies need to drop in price to get below the $1000/kg threshold. Are there any limiting costs that stand out, or is it a broad swath of technologies that would need to be improved? How much effect would throwing lots more money at any given technology even make?

Please elaborate. Phrases like "every time I try to simulate the system" make get all excited to know more.

Funny I've almost never heard a decent reason for why it is improbably/impossible. The first person to tell me its flaw was a NASA scientist I know from college. And by tell me I mean she said to go solve the orbital mechanics problem and pay attention to the forces exerted on the payload. But because its as much scifi fiat as fusion has been for so long I don't fault anyone for including them. I just usually can't help but comment... the dork in me always wins.

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I don't have any exact numbers on mineral spread. I do know that the asteroids we have surveyed have had a higher concentration of heavy and precious metals than on Earth, likely due to geological processes that took place during the Earth's formation that pulled the heavier elements towards the core.

It turns out, we might not even need to go so far as the asteroid belt, since there are a number of objects that orbit much closer to Earth, like 4660 Nereus

I'm not sure, my three semesters of econ were limited to classical theory (marx vs smith) and the basics of macro and micro economics. I don't have much more than a layman's understanding of the stock market, though I might be able to look it up later.
-----
Sure, there would be a drastic drop in the value of "precious" metals, and that might just be a plot hook for a shadowrun. Gold investors don't want asteroid mining project to succeed.

But if you look at the example of Aluminum, it used to be worth more than gold before the Hall–Héroult process allowed for easy refinement in 1886, but just this last year the US aluminum association's records state that the U.S. alone produced 1,731,124 metric tons of Aluminum in 2009. at ¢70 a pound, that comes out to a gross value of $2,671,532,590 not too shabby.

If we had an abundant source of platinum, a fuel cell economy might actually be viable.

Please tell me that by marx you do not mean Karl Marx...

and revenue has to cover overhead and per unit production costs before it gets close to stockholder dividends or stock buybacks. Averageish profit margin on gross revenue is 10%, but that is not what stockholders see usually. Insurance companies and banks I seem to remember having 1-5% margins. Most dividends that I notice as compared to stock price are puny around 1%. If BP pays out its dividend this next quarter it will be roughly 10% if stock prices stay close to the same. So long story short there is no direct correlation. Figuring out the correlation in a particular company before anyone else is what can make millionaires and billionaires.

hi hi

Yes, yes I do mean Karl Marx. Regardless of what people think of communism, you can't really say that it isn't relevant.

Are any part of the former communist countries still operating under communism in SR? And do they have a Space Program? "Commies In SPAAAAAAAACE!"

-- As far as I am aware there are 0 national space programs in Shadowrun. Everything is outsourced to corporations.

ow. Ok, if that's the trope they are using, then that does do quite a bit to limit the vision to LEO and this side of the moon. I think. What would we consider to be the first limiting technology and which corp do we think would pony up the R&D costs to get it's production cost down?

-- I updated the first post with most of the corporate goings-on in orbit (updating as I go). It appears Novatech is actually the one that is keen on developing an orbital infrastructure for further projects, as is Saeder-Krupp.
-- There doesn't appear to be any limiting technology, just limited application of what is available

Doesn't SK building anything in orbit almost require the other AAA's to do the same? Ares in particular can't really let any other corporation move resources somewhere it can't drop a THOR onto. They'd need to find some way to keep their military superiority to maintain the balance of the Corporate Court.

It's happening now, so it will definitely be happening in SR.

QUOTE

After decades of unsuccessful development, military space planes are finally getting some respect. On April 19 the U.S. Air Force plans to launch the X-37B, an unmanned space plane that will circle the planet a classified number of times before making an autonomous landing. (Popular Mechanics profiled the effort as the magazine's cover story in April.) The idea of a pop-up reconnaissance platform, to be used if a satellite is not available or is disabled, is an important rationale for the Air Force's project.

The Marines' space plane takes the Corps' slogan of "first to fight" to the extreme: It could transport a squad of Marine riflemen to anyplace on earth within 2 hours, and then extract them after their mission is complete. Though the goal is appealing—imagine delivering well-armed Marines at hypersonic speed to a suspected Osama bin Laden hideout or besieged embassy—the concept seemed outlandish to many when it was first proposed.

http://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/2010/04/23...-space-marines/

Ouch. Since him killing Nachtmeister is what sets the whole Shockwaves event in motion (The titular shockwaves are the repercussions of Nachtmeister's death), that is a horrible translation flaw. But since the text apparently cannot always decide whether it wants to be English or French, the traslation is more than rocky anyway. Sorry about that. It makes more sense in the German version.


There always are people who would like to participate in something. However,

a) would their businesses be viable? Think of the dotcom era and how viable many firms were back then, of the thousands and thousands of companies, how many survived to today - acouple dozen?
b) how far would states and quasinational corps be willing to open up space to anyone willing to set up shop? The security issues with any shady group being able to get essentially their own thur shot kill vehicle into space are quite substantial.
c) is there enough room for all? Since a space elevator would only allow acces to LEO, and most space applications would need contact with the surface down - few sattelite projects make sense otherwise - there is only finite slots for businesses to shoot up their own sattelite.
d) why would megas and governments suddenly stop being petty and controlling?

Again, something may be technically viable, but that's not saying much about whether it happens. What is and isn't realised is first and foremost a social, political and economical question.


And if anything goes wrong, they kill all life on earth. Also, given how stellar bodies affect the global magical environment, it may well fuck up the gaiasphere by just sitting there. Yes, dragons think in the long term, but they also are rather conservative and wouldn't lightly risk their existence just for some quick buck to turn - and again, what orbital industry would you want to sell the nickel iron to? The one that is very fledgeling at best? You might well flood the market beyond capacity and ruin your profits, because now nickel iron ore in orbit is so easy to have nobody wants to pay much for it. There goes your revenue. Assuming you don't wipe out all life, or fuck up the Gaiashere like Halley did.


You might also look into what that meant for the ressources' prices, and the producers. You're really being overly optimistic. That's not even taking into account all the non-SK megas being rather unwilling to have their earthbound mining operations suffer so SK can establish a quasi monopoly. The whole plan would also face political problems, sabotage and maybe even corp shadow war - costing SK even more. I don't see the huge advantage SK gains with this, but many problems raised by it. As IceKatze's article says.


Well yes. It's not like this is supertech. It has been more or less feasible, technologically, since the 1950s.


The only somewhat viable way I can think of is making it Corp Court roperty, like the Panama canal, open for all to use who buy a license. And defended by a UN task force, just in case anyone gets any ideas. How that will protect it against terrorism or angry dragons, rocs and other huge monsters, though, I have no idea, since such a structure is extremly vulnerable to damage.

You are aware that most megas are rather invested in mining, are you?


Yes (Vietnam, a chinese splinter state, Angola, one of the minor Latin American countries). And no, they all have more pressing concerns. Russia is neocommunist, but it's space program was sold to Evo long ago.


According to Rigger 3, that problem has been solved otherwise, since most cars in SR are supposed to have a fuel cell engine of some kind. Probably because a fuel cell is a black box for the writer, but there you go.


Aztlan has one (heh). But yes, you're right. Space is a megacorp domain, where nations may operate as junior partners. Which is what I have been trying to say all along.


It does. Think of a ten-sided cold war balance of terror with less threat of immediate annihilation.

As the books quite literally say they do, then yes.


Its not a personal attack, its a statement of fact. If you contemplated an attack against an xenosapeint entity capable of designing, building and launching a fusion powered spaceship, I'd call you insane. If you actually tried, I'd have to kill you for the good of the species. Some bears you just don't go poking with a stick, and a critter like that would be one of them.


Don't get angry at me, its in the setting. Cities, and governments are getting A.I.'s to live in their nodes to make them better. If you don't like it, don't blame me.


The plant doesn't breath air, I know that. The engine the plant powers breaths air, which is super heated by the waste heat, and electricity generated by the plant, and forced out as exhaust.



Pg 166 unwired.

No, it's a statement of opinion.


Yeah, because rolling over and surrendering is a good idea when dealing with hostile xenosapient entities. They sure will give a damn about that. The only way to respond then is to take them out and make sure they stay out. Never mind that the space launch fusion ship will not happen because Shadowrun is not Star Trek.


California, thankfully, is not the world as a whole. The setting would be FUBAR'd then. Also, you put too much credit into these sentences so far (though it might well be SR's dork age is just beginning; I received some information to that extent - maybe it's time to treat SR like Star Wars fans treat the non-lucas novels and games universe soon, pick and choose).


Since SR is neither Star Trek nor Battletech, fusion power plants are the size of a power plant and hence weigh in very heavily. And you massively underestimate the force necessary to get anything into orbit. Your fusion ship will not happen. So you might want to drop that.

As I pointed out in my last post, there are cities and corporations which encourage A.I.'s to live in their nodes. There are also governments, and corporations which grant them citizenship. This means your "must kill them all" mindset would land you in jail, or infront of a firing squad.

Also, 'cold fusion' has been around since about 20-29, and as such those reactors are likely kinda small by this point in the game with 40 years of miniaturization behind them, so if they can't be launched whole and help to power the ship on the way up, they're likely only going to need a very small number of launches to put all the pieces in orbit.

There also are corporations and cities that tolerate blood mages, and yet must kill them all is a valid attitude in most places.


No, they are not. Otherwise, there'd be fusion-powered cars and tanks.


Which they cannot.


And will be ignored there because last time a xenosapient AI got busy like that it had to be fought tooth and nail too. Look, the setting does not work the way you want it to, no matter how much you argue. Play Eclipse Phase for this transhumanist hightech atmosphere.

hi hi

Canon events and characters are one thing, but every GM and every player needs to draw from their own life experiences and understanding of human nature to create a believable character or what they think would be plausible interactions. And really, if there are very important plot things effecting the characters in a game, they're the ones that ought to ultimately be the judge of what they are going to do about it. I'm pretty sure you could run a game in space with or without AIs.

As for having an air breathing first stage, you could also launch your rocket from a zeppelin or an electric rotor craft, but a fusion engine doesn't have the thrust to escape the Earth's gravity well. You would want to at least get it into LEO before you could fire one up and expect to make headway.

Possible, but a rocket first stage is still more solid. A semiballistic or suborbital airplane might work for smaller payloads that then are shot up with a one-stage missile.

-- I don't think its cold fusion actually (if it said that somewhere it was quickly forgotten).
-- Rigger hasn't been particularly consistent on this but I see a few references to fusion power (subsumed under Nuclear) and it's only available for very large vehicles (Medium Merchantman on up - and the smaller ones may be far more compact fission). See Rigger 3, p. 201. No aircraft can have a reactor installed.

• Nuclear powerplant entry (see below).
• Kvalnder-Maersk Triton-Class Commercial Boat (p. 188): "bubble-fusion reactor"

Rigger 3, p. 110-111

-- Semiballistics can reach orbit to dock with LEO stations (probably those on the low end of low), but it's not clear what they sacrifice to do so (less cargo? Need refuelling before leaving the station?). You could also launch rockets from aircraft (e.g. Pegasus)

-- Most Shadowrun launches do seem to use standard chemical rockets launched from ground pads. Perhaps because they are launching a lot of tonnage at once? I have not seen any references for laser launch or plane-launched systems (well, there is a mention of plane-launched ASATs).

Oh my, yes. Yeeeeessssss. Mwhaahahahahah!!! *cough*

This actually doesn't follow. The US hasn't built a nuclear power plant since 1979, and the same level of progress is true for most developed nations. There are atomic energy concerns that have new designs for plants that are supposed to be clear, safer, and more efficient, but no one is buying. There is some possibility of them being built in third world countries on the dime of first world countries for some Kyoto Protocol reasons (allowing the investment in the third world country to "buy off" some of the developed countries carbon emissions), but any progress with energy sources this expensive measures time glacially.

Special rocket boosters according to NAGTRL.


Sure, you can run your games anyway you want. However, this thread is about a possible canon-compatible fan pdf supplement, is it not? Hence it should remain plausible and within canon.

And the onlyx city I find that accepts AI for enhancing stuff is LA. And LA is bonkers beyond the possible.

Actually, Sweden is buying. However, basic necessities limit the miniaturisation nuclear and fusion reactors can have. Fusion reactors need tremendous shielding and magnets to hold the plasma in place, and fission reactors need a certain mass of radioactive fuel, and an appropriate mass of moderators (And that needs a certain mass to isolate it). You cannot miniaturise everything to letter stamp size.

I remember there being an equation in my physics book for describing the force needed for escape velocity. Does anyone have that handy? It might help us decide what weights can and can't be moved by various propulsion systems. Or that might be GURPS level of overly complex detail.

hi hi

Base velocity necessary:

Ve=√((2GM)/r)

Ve= Escape velocity
M= Mass of Planet
G= Gravitational Constant
r= Radius from Center of Planet

Gravitational and Atmospheric drag are a bit more tricky.

A rough approximation of gravitational drag:

∂v = g * t

∂v = Delta V required to counter gravitational drag
g = acceleration due to gravity near planet's surface
t = duration of liftoff burn

Atmospheric drag is based on the aerodynamic properties of your ship, no neat equation to determine that really.

Acceleration must be greater than gravity in order to reach escape velocity.

A = F/M

A = Acceleration (m/s)
F = Force (newtons)
M = Mass (kilograms)

Aerodynamic drag can be modeled with a differential equation without too much difficulty, but it has a coefficient of friction that has to be empirically measured.



I kid, it's a bitch and a half. Approximating it seems like a good idea.

-- Note that escape velocity is for breaking free from Earth's orbit. It requires a substantially reduced amount of delta-V to simply enter Earth orbit, move to a LaGrange point, etc.
-- Atomic Rocket lays this out (albeit in a very disorganized manner!)

• Earth to orbit: 7.6 km/s (4.8 mps). Yes, that's a lot!
• Other Missions depend on your transfer orbit. Check out the updated Orbiter 2010 for better simulations.

The only good reason to teach Marx is to show how to hurt an economy. I think that has been proved by every nation that has stuck with his teachings going bankrupt, and the rest adopting more Americanish systems. Funny though that we are going the opposite way and are going broke. But that is a bit further off topic than I should probably go...

take basic physics equations of motion. so Gravity and kinematics. make up a simple physics engine that can handle many bodies, point sources though so care must be taken. Plug in initial conditions and for any forces other than gravity make up a special case solver that is inline with the others. Clean it up some to reduce array size and memory needs. Tell LabVIEW the crayola compiler to GO. wait for results.

for a couple months I was on a project at work where I had to do most of this kinda work already so I spent some extra time on fun stuff as practice... including orbital mechanics for a SR game I ran

yes there is risk. but without risk there is no reward. Well at least in business. And new markets are always the riskiest, but they always have the biggest reward if and when they become a new market. The timid never seem to make it in business that I see. And there are conservative ways to take big risks.

And would the other megas take it lying down? I doubt it. Would there be problems and sabotage and a shadow war? well this is shadowrun so I would hope so... I know I don't about you but I'm not trying to play merchant here. The business stuff is the reason and justification, but the chaos is the fun. Also, the megas take huge risks all the time and put the world at risk all the time. So I'm not sure how this would be different except its in space and would not be the ol boring horrors did it storyline.

And that last line was probably a little overly harsh on the horror metaplot, I like it, but I don't want it to be the only plot or metaplot around.

As far as orbits and such and getting into them. heck just google it. even wikipedia I have found to be 95% good stuff. If you are really interested beyond that well I'll list some reading material, but don't say I didn't warn you that its high on math.

the first one is freshman year physics the other is a sophmore or junior level for undergraduate or first year graduate class.

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Physics...;sr=8-2-catcorr

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-...9037&sr=1-7

Maybe when I'm sober again I'll feel like dealing with math, but my hangover is beginning so I'm in no mood.

I was thinking of it being a fusion powered spaceplane, so it can get 'lift' off an aerobody all the way up. That way it only has to counter part of earth's gravity, instead of all of it, and gets to breath air on the way up. It would allow it to make the journey into orbit with empty reaction mass tanks on the ground, so it doesn't actually carry the weight until it gets high into the atmosphere. Once up, it could fill its tanks with atmospheric gases, and boost off from there. It also makes aero breaking/atmosphere minning, in the jovian system much easier, if you wish to go there. As then you could mine one of the jovian moons.

Actually the reactor and generator portion of a small fission reactor can actually fit in a reasonably small space, say about the space of a large room, or small basement. Its all the 'safety' provisions and kill switches which make it so large.

As the passage makes no reference to these being the stranger places, as opposed to the more normal places, I'm going to have to say I believe you to be incorrect. Generally when something is only permitted in wacky places, it is listed as being only permitted in wacky places, blood magic being a very good example of this.


How small do you think I think they are exactly? Also, you're thinking purely of the telomac reactors, I'm also aware of several experiments being done with lasers, and the fact I know SR laser tech is actually quite good.
I was thinking of fitting it in the middle of a wide body space plane, or flying wing.


I have yet to see reasonable evidence to the contrary. The last reference to the technology was 2060, and I am again not sure what size you think they are at this point? The largest hurdle to making a small reactor is room temperature super conductors to make the magnets with. That's been solved. Next is shielding, but to the best of my knowledge low mass bucky compounds can supplement this, greatly reducing the mass of the shielding. So I see a great many technological revolutions which is greatly reduce the size and mass of a fusion plant to something manageable for a large plane.



I'm not even sure what this statement is saying. a) the technology exists, and is feasible. b) An A.I. has the skills and patience needed to plan perform all the needed physical actions. c) because A.I.'s can be legal citizens of a country, they would have the right to create these devices, and travel in space just as anyone else would. An industrial nanoforge can make all the parts, and nano-hives can make the raw materials. While the needed equipment may require permits, none of it is illegal. There is nothing stopping the construction of the ship legally. Space is like international waters, you do not have any legal rights to attack anyone else's stuff unless you are at war. Doing so makes you at war. So anyone who attacked it would now be subject to the full measures of international law, and quite possibly the corperate courts, as this A.I. may be a corperate citizen. This would also likely mean that the A.I. would likely respond to that attack in kind. If you think an A.I. is dangerous because it wants to leave the planet to get away from crazy people, find out what happens when it wants to hear them scream, because you would.

-- Ignoring Marx in any discussion of capitalism is lunacy, sorry. Especially as many of his observations on late-phase capitalism certainly seem to be bearing him out.

-- I'm not clear what you are arguing for. Smaller fusion reactors and fusion air-rams? We cannot make an argumentum ad ignorantiam in this case as we know one thing for certain: Shadowrun technological development does not follow a logical path The latest mentions of fusion power in the setting (2072) make no note about them being compact or small, and are always in the context of large facilities.

Yes, THAT has worked really well to keep the economy from collapsing.

The two nation faring extremly well in today's economy - Germany and China - both are a mix of socialist etatism and a free market economy, albeit a very different mix each (and both are extremly export oriented, to the expense of their work forces). Seems neither extreme is working out very well on it's own, so yes, teaching Marx makes sense.

But I agree, this is going way off topic.


Risk =/= recklessness. And emerging markets still need a target audience. The dotcom boom happened because everybody wanted to use the internet because it was something hithertofore unknown and very useful. Space, however, is neither.

And I am not talking about the other megas racing to keep up, I am talking of them keeping SK down. Corps in SR, especially the Japana- and Eurocorps, are rather conservative.

And personally, I prefer something that feels like Shadowrun to something that has been re-hashed in just about any space opera since the 50s, and is about as generic as warp engines and hyperspace travel. To me, that's boring, bland and generic. YMMV, naturally.


Oh look it's Belka.


Oh, so it would spend what, a decade? in the upper atmosphere hydrolysing what little water it could harvest there to get enough deuterium to actually start it's reactor? You cannot power a fusion reactor with just about anything.


And other useless stuff like cooling, moderation and the damn steam engine so the reactor is good for actually creating electricity instead of waste heat only. You really ought to check up on how a power plant works. Electricity does NOT magically generate itself in a fission reactor; it is generated by a steam engine attached to the reactor. This is not Star Trek where energy magically comes from somewhere. Given how Shadowrun is the system that utilises magic more than Star Trek with it's psychic powers, that's rather ironic.


Yes, research is for losers, because why look up other books if one book says what you want to hear. :eyeroll:


And lasers totally need no power source at all. Especially the high-energy lasers needed for this kind of power plant - which needs sustained laser activity, not 10 bursts to shoot down ten missiles and then return to base for more weighty chemical batteries, like the pentagon laser anti missile plane.


I take it you have sources for these claims?

Sure, if we're talking 50s weirdness or video games kind of gargantuan 1 km wingspan super planes. Of course, this plane has to be built somewhere. This cunning plan would need a major megacorp backer, at the very least. And even then, such projects usually implode. Check out the plans for nuclear powered superplanes in the 50s. All were canned because in the end, they just were not worth it.

Oh, and it would also have to take off somewhere.