Significant Revision 27 December 2010: Added information on Z-O from Corporate Download.
20 December 2010: Added updates from War!
23 June 2010: Added Shadowrun Space Assets list. Reorganized.
23 June 2010: Added space references from Shockwaves. Added start of corporation focus. Fixed a bunch of spelling errors. Adding reference links.
24 June 2010: Corporate Guide updates.
30 June 2010: Almanac updates. Splitting off conversion notes to separate thread.

Page References
If you have a comment that touches on in-game issues please try and provide page references. There are a LOT of books, and most of the space references go back literally decades.

Overview
Space remains an "undiscovered country" in Shadowrun. The only in-depth coverage it has ever received was in Target: Wastelands (In-Game: pp. 66-84; Game Mechanics: pp. 124-129). Besides that, there are the occasional references to orbital goings-on related to Zurich-Orbital (e.g. Corporate Guide, pp. 27-28) or notes that Corporation X has a small facility they use for Y. War! finally gave actual game stats for the Shadowrun worlds biggest bully sticks - orbital artillery.



There are only a few thousand people total living in space as of 2062 (might be more now, what with the full-fledged Gagarin Mars colony - Corporate Guide, p. 84). With the Comet gone there doesn't seem to be a lot of impetus for orbital development though - Shadowrun fusion reactors are not helium-3 based (AFAIK) and everyone seems to have no particular problem accessing mineral wealth.

Propulsion
Useful Wikipedia reference page.

• Chemical Rockets: Propulsion technologies are probably limited to chemical rockets for the most part -- kerosene-oxygen for Earth-LEO and metal-oxygen for intraorbital movement (since that can be produced on Luna).
• Laser Lift: Laser-lift seems perfectly reasonable given Shadowrun beam weapon technology as well.
• Spaceplanes: Shockwaves (p. 14) notes that Proteus is interested in reviving the "Sänger principle." Unclear what is special about this, as the Sänger spaceplane concept is pretty much a semiballistic with a small cargo shuttle strapped to the back (altitude of the plane and its speed significantly reduces the delta-V requirement to achieve orbit).

As far as relativistic speeds, reference the Long Distance Space Travel table in Target: Wastelands, p. 129. Delta-v is very low for Shadowrun craft; there are no direct Earth-Luna trips (p. 128) and travel times are quite long.

Weapons
Useful Atomic Rocket reference page.

Space weaponry is supposedly limited by a series of treaties (War!, p. 159) including SALT IV, SALT V, and the Nairobi Accords prohibiting nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in space. I'm not sure the authors really knew what SALT was (see Wiki).

The major corporate stations have limited defenses, consisting of nearby killsats and onboard directed energy weapons. Most orbital weapon platforms are pointed down. There are no warships prowling around Lunar orbit waiting to unleash their hellish payload of c-beams and quantum nucleonic warheads.

• Directed Energy Weapons: Manpack high-energy systems have been available decades in the Shadowrun universe (the MP Laser dates to 2050!). Heavy particle beams were fairly common by 2059 (Cyberpirates, p. 180 and Rigger 3, pp. 86-87). Advances seem to have dried up, and variations of these old-ass weapons are still being marketed in 2071 (see Arsenal, p. 41). The heavier Firelance is on p. 123. Closest approximation for most space systems is the Winter Systems Mercury Ship Laser (Arsenal, p. 124). Particle beam technology has taken a bit of a holiday since Rigger 3.
• Railguns: Also another early-peak technology. There have been no substantial advances from the original Rigger Black Book (the Ares EG-200 railgun on the Stonewall heavy Thunderbird). Large space platforms will probably be using something similar to the Itzoatl (Arsenal, p. 123).
• Satellite-Based Artillery: Somewhat available on the open market, orbital artillery ("THOR shots"/"Rods from God") have been a part of the Shadowrun canon almost from the beginning. The system described in War! (pp. 159-160) consists of five related components as part of a complete Aesir Satellite System. Similar systems are manufactured by Aztechnology (Xolotl) and, experimentally, Saeder-Krupp (Himmelhammer).
  
  • Thor Missile: Tungsten pole measuring 500mm x 12,000mm. Strikes with the force of a 1 kT fission bomb ... which is not really impressive in Shadowrun.
  • Freya Missile: "Tactical" weapon measuring c. 250mm x 6,000 mm. Damage approximately equal to a 0.1 kT fission bomb (10% of a Thor shot).
  • Loki canister: "Buckshot" canister shot with many smaller missiles in a container about 1 meter in length. Impact does not cause any blast.
  • Aesir Guidance Laser: Rifle-shaped laser designator specifically designed for terminal guidance of satellite artillery. Not clear why you can't use normal laser designators. Described as a maser (microwave laser) in the listing.
  • Aesir Guidance Beacon: Lunchbox-sized beacon that doubles accuracy of strikes on its location.

Construction
Orbital manufacturing is almost exclusively oriented around producing products in microgravity for consumption down the gravity well. There is very little interest in expanding orbital infrastructure development beyond the boutique level - even the Lunar operations are low-key. We can assume that almost all construction materials are brought up the gravity well and assembled on-site (Ares has access to much cheaper Lunar metals). Nanotechnology is useful for assembly, but it cannot create something from nothing so pre-built components will probably be the order of the day in order to save time. This means that most habitats are going to be extremely flimsy contraptions as mass is at a very high premium even though there is a rather well-developed launch infrastructure to service the burgeoning LEO satellite market.

Also see Space Exploration and Exploitation in Augmentation, p. 102.

References of Note

• TzeentchNet Link Page: Tons of links to useful resources.
• Space Studies Institute: Plenty of information about orbital manufacturing, mining, and solar power satellites.
• Space Propulsion Wiki Page: Good overview of current technologies.
• RAND Space Weapons, Earth Wars: Everything you wanted to know about orbital bombardment.
• RAND Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Step in the Military Uses of Space: Report focused on long-term USAF challenges.
• NASA Glenn Research Technical Report Server: Excellent site! For example see their "Realizing 2001" document for fusion drive discussion.

Related Dumpsock Threads
Shadowrun Space Sociology

Shadowrun Aerospace Corporations

Ares

• Subsidiary of note is Ares Space.
• Owns and operates Apollo Station (LEO), Icarus Station (GEO), Daedalus Station (L4), Artemis Arcology (Luna), Helios Station (solar LaGrange), and Charon Station (unknown location).
• Dominates space industry. (Corporate Guide, p. 58)
• Plans a permanent base on Phobos by 2079
• Contracted to build the habitat and biospheres on the Skyhook.
• Sells the Aesir Satellite System to discriminating customer that need orbital fire support (War!, pp. 159-160).
• Timeline:
  
  • 2063: (July 14-21) Thor orbital bombardment of Rømø arcology.
  • 2071: Unveiled new lightsail and ion engine design.
  • 2072: (May 9) Excelsior space nano-constructors unveiled (probably for use on Skyhook project). (Corporate Guide, p. 59).

Proteus

• Subsidiary of note is Proteus Space. Headquartered at Devil's Island arcology.
• Researched artificial biosphere and recylcing processes to create fully autonomous space habitats (Shockwaves, p. 14).
• Owns and operates Treffpunkt Raumhafen (L1).
• Timeline:
  
  • 2057: French government grants right to use Devil Islands as a launch pad.
  • 2057: (September 1) First launch of a space rocket. Quickly followed by more successes.
  • 2058: Begins construction of second launch pad on Isla Puna off Ecuador. Construction begins on Treffpunkt Raumhafen. (Shockwaves, p. 6)
  • 2058: (December) Uses ocean arkoblocks as smokescreen to cover construction of Treffpunkt Raumhafen.
  • 2060: Trans-Orbital contracted for logistics at Treffpunkt Raumhafen.
  • 2061: Launches unsuccessful Götterbote Halley's probe.
  • 2062: (March) Treffpunk Raumhafen officially opened.

Evo (formerly Yamatetsu)

• Subsidiary of note is Evo Space and Transglobal.
• Owns and operates Shibanokkuji Freefall Resort (LEO) and Gagarin Mars Base (Mars).
• Heavy lift is contracted through Roskosmos (Russia's space program). Five spaceports. (Corporate Guide, p.83)
• Operates a half-dozen space stations. (Corporate Guide, p. 83)
• Transglobal controls the Mojave spaceport (Corporate Guide, p. 102)

NeoNET (formery Novatech)

• Operates Darkside Junction (L2) and Olympia Moon Base (Moon).

Saeder-Krupp

• Operates the Himmelsschmiedel Orbital Factory (LEO) and Fernselt Lunar Station (Luna).
• Works with the Corporate court to prevent price crashes of minerals due to lunar and asteroid mining (Corporate Guide, p. 152).
• Operates some orbital solar collectors.
• Contractor for Skyhook project.
• Opened Ariane Spaceport in Korou to the public.
• Heavily investing in space assets and colonization.

Shibata Construction and Engineering

• Owned by a free spirit (Buttercup).
• Contracted to maintain and upgrade the Spindle (LEO).
• Operates commsat relays for the Gagarin Mars Base.

Aztechnology

• Owns and operates The Spindle (LEO and various small stations.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2070: (August 18) Rogue AI takes over the Tlaloc orbital station (biowarfare research facility) .
  • 2071: Unveiled new lightsail and ion engine design.
  • 2072: Excelsior space nano-constructors unveiled (probably for use on Skyhook project). (Corporate Guide, p. 59).

Shadowrun Space Assets

Major Earth Projects

Corporate Court
-- Skyhook Space Elevator
Corporate Guide, p. 69, 153) [2072]

• Anchor construction probably will not start until late 2074.
• Ground anchor to be located somewhere in Latin America (Ecuador, Colombia, or Venezuela).
• Saeder-Krupp contracted to develop and manage docking and launch facilities on anchor asteroid.
• S-K Sternensucher automated retrievers hauling steroid to Earth. Scheduled to arrive late 2073.
• AresSpace contracted to build the habitats and biosphere.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2072: (November 10) Space elevator announced.
  • 2074: Key components expected to be online.
  • 2076: Space habitat expected to be complete.

-- Kilimanjaro Mass Driver
(Corporate Guide, p. 83)

• Still under construction (huh?!) (Corporate Guide, p. 28)
• Used for freight and supplies.
• Petition to shut down the mass driver upon completion of the elevator.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

Independents
-- Almost 50 manned stations.
(Wastelands, p. 74) [2062]

• Most are small workshacks that house a dozen personnel.
  
  • Aztechnology: Tlaloc bioweapons station

Ares
-- Apollo Station (Wastelands, p. 75) [2062]

• First station built and operated by a corporation.
• Refitted as a supply center and transportation hub.
• Leases space to Mitsuhama and Zeta-ImpChem, UCAS Data Systems, and Prometheus Engineering.
• Sections of the station fall under different extraterritorial jurisdiction (yeah, that sound safe).
• Recreational center for space workers. Vice capital of space.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2019: (April 12) Apollo opened.

Novatech
-- Camelot Research Platform
(Wastelands pp. 75-76) [2062]

• Operated by Walker Aerodesign subsidiary. Focused on materials research.
• Station does final assembly and maintenance of satellites in LEO and GEO.
• No subleased workspace.
• Research modules from Nakatomi faction jettisoned "toward the sun" and could be retrieved (huh?) (may have actually been a junkball "Thor shot" (p. 79) double huh?)

Saeder-Krupp
-- Himmelsschmiedel Orbital Factory ("Sky Forge")
(Wastelands, pp. 76-77) [2062]

• Focuses on manufacturing.
• Steals most of its expertise.
• Subcontracted for logistical and transportation work by smaller stations.
• Only corporation that leases space is Cross, for biotechnical research.

Evo
-- Shibanokuji Freefall Resort
(Wastelands, p. 77) [2062]

• Recreational station targeted at the very wealthy.
• Little to no organized crime presence.
• Large enough for trolls to visit.
• Medical research for zero gravity adaptation.
• Working on a delta clinic on the station.

(Corporate Guide, pp. 83-84) [2072]

• Now 20x its original size.
• Can house 1,000 guests with a staff of c. 200.

-- Smaller Stations
(Wastelands, p. 77) [2062]

• Most biomedical research done on separate work stations.
• Leases and supplies facilities to other Pacific Prosperity Group members.
  
  • Kwonsham Industries: microtronics research.
  • Manabe: biotechnical research.
  • Tan Tien: cybernetic interfaces and protein data storage.
  • Wuxing: magical research ("mana cultivation" and alchemical impact).

Aztechnology
(Wastelands, pp. 77-78) [2062]

-- The Spindle

• Opened in 2048. Evacuated in 2050 after massive systems failure. 48 dead out of a crew of 400.
• Now operates at 1/3 capacity.
• Shibata handles station operations and orbital lift. Also maintains Japanese spy satellites (p. 81).
• Hydroponic research.
• Universal Omnitech leases space for biotechnical research. Dissatisfied with facilities but got the space cheap.
• Shibata wants to branch the station out into a commercial hub.
• Total garden size about 2/3 of an acre.

Corporate Court

-- Zurich Orbital
(Wastelands, p. 78) [2062]

• Constructed of 4m x 10m cylinders for the most part.
• Tight security.
• Station makes supply runs to Apollo, Shibanokuji, and Icarus.
• Has nearby weapon platforms.

(Corporate Guide, pp. 27-28) [2072]

• Orbits at 560 km.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2032: (November 15) Corporate Court takeover of Global Financial Services.
  • 2033: (March 15) GFS relocated to Z-O and renamed the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank.

(Corporate Download, pp. 18-20) [2061]

• Equatorial low-earth orbit.
• Does not spin.
• Looks like a tinkertoy set constructed with modular cylinders.
• Two central dodecahedron structures:
  
  • Rotunda: Z-O command center.
  • Meeting Room: Where the Corporate Court meets (assembled and added 2060).
• Six mini-rotundas c. 10m in diameter serve as meeting rooms and living courters for primary residents. One or more houses Xeno-Cray ultra-computers and communication gear, gourmet kitchens, etc.
• Timeline:
  
  • c. 2000s: NASA launches the Freedom space station.
  • c. 2008: AresSpace acquires NASA assets and boosts Freedom into stable orbit.
  • 2023: Acquired by the Corporate Court (note date) (p. 18).

Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO)

Independents
-- Large numbers of communications, weather, and surveillance satellites.
(Wastelands, pp. 78-79) [2062]

• Most manned stations are transit hubs or satellite maintenance facilities.
  
  • Tír na nÓg: Surveillance satellite watching home island (Almanac, p. 153).

--Echo Station
(Wastelands, pp. 79-80) [2062]

• Used to be the Harris-3M Halo station before the Crash.
• Freelancers boarded the station in 2054 and set up shop.
• Smuggling point.
• Saeder-Krupp provides logistic support and has small presence on the station.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2017: (May 9) Halo launched.
  • 2029: (February Crash Virus disables station.

Ares
-- Maintains UCAS spy satellites (p. 81).
-- Icarus Station
(Wastelands, p. 79) [2062]

• Opened in 2060.
• Transit station between LEO and Daedalus/Moon.
• 0.5G spin gravity on outer ring.
• Part of station being renovated for recreation. Various problems delaying opening to 2063 (Yamatetsu sabotage).
• Oversees the junkball "Thor shots" by Ares.

Hisato-Turner Broadcasting Corporation
-- The Obelisk
(Wastelands, p. 80) [2062]

• Maintains satellite constellation.
• Squabbles with Saeder-Krupp and Ares.

Trans-Orbital
-- Shares launch facilities with Novatech and Proteus at Formosa Bay and Devil's Island.
-- Barely A-level multinational.
-- Silver Pinnacle (Station House)
(Wastelands, p. 81) [2062]

• Launch and maintain satellites for other corporations.
• Maintains spy satellites for the CAS, Israel, and the UK.
• Refueling station for GEO-Moon-LaGrange travel.

LaGrange Points (L1 - L4)

L1: Proteus
-- Treffpunkt Raumhafen
(Wastelands, p. 81) [2062]

• Operational March (c. 16th), 2062 (also see Shockwaves, p. 3)
• Primary Proteus station.
• Somehow noone noticed them building the station (huh?)
• Leases space to AG Chemie Europa, Transys Neuronet, and ECC Eurotronics.
• "scary experiments ... regarding manipulation of living human being" (huh?) (Shockwaves, p. 12)
• Researching articial gravity (Shockwaves, p. 17).

L2: NeoNET
-- Darkside Junction
(Wastelands, pp. 81) [2062]

• Began and stopped construction in 2055. Restarted in early 2062.
• Half the station completed and operational.
• Hub for Navatech lunar operations (mining surveys).
• Base for planned automated mining and refining facility on the moon for space construction raw materials.

L3: Monsters
-- Nerva
(Wastelands, pp. 82) [2062]

• Everyone on station died during the Crash.
• Lifeless husk.
• Possible home of genetic monstrosities (huh?)
• Timeline:
  
  • 2029: (February Crash Virus disables station.

L4: Ares
-- Daedalus
(Wastelands, pp. 82) [2062]

• Ares' primary space research facility.
• Larger than several hundre-thousand ton supercarriers combined (oh, really?)
• Staging point for Artemis lunar arcology and Helios station in solar orbit.
• Magical research, space weapon developments, genetics, genemodded microgravity-adapted metahumans.
• Personally visited by Damien Knight on a regular basis.

L5: Independents
-- Angel Station ("Junkyard")

• Formerly Harris-3M microtronics and material engineering station.
• Lot of coalesced junk in the area.
• Novatech and Tamatetsu want to build a station there.
• Scavengers pick over the site.
• Timeline:
  
  • 2029: (February Crash Virus disables station.

The Moon
-- First lunar settlement by Saeder-Krupp at end of the 2050s (not very specific and contradicts Ares in 2055)
-- Second settlement by Ares in 2055.
-- Third settlement begun by Novatech (two-thirds complete by 2062, Wastelands, p. 82)

Ares
-- Artemis Lunar Arcology
(Wastelands, pp. 82-83) [2062]

• Located near Apollo 11 landing site.
• Houses 150 personnel.
• Various research projects from medicine to geology.
• Minor mining operations. Conducting more surveys.
• Ghost sightings on the moon's surface.
• Researching casting spells between the Earth and Moon using optical telescopes for line of sight.

Saeder-Krupp
-- Fernselt Lunar Station
(Wastelands, pp. 83-84) [2062]

• Operated by subsidiary Lunar Mining Corp.
• Located in vicinity of moon's polar ice caps.
• Mines calcium and titanium ores (traces of iron, quartz and certain rare elements).
• Hub of mining operations. Drone convoy trains shuttle ore around.
• One mobile base not a mining station, up to shenanigans.
• Base houses archaeologists.
• Telesma extraction (moon rocks for alchemy - ritual significance)

NeoNET
-- Olympia Lunar Base
(Wastelands, p. 84) [2062]

• Construction began in 2061. 2/3 complete by late 2062. Expect full completion by 2064.
• Skeleton crew

Mars
-- NASA Project Cydonia in 2011 (8 astronauts to Mars, 3 survived and never reached the target) (Wastelands, p. 84).
-- Yamatetsu announced manned mission to reach Mars by mid-2063 (Wastelands, p. 84)
-- Proteus plans to establish a Mars station between 2072-2075 (Shockwaves, p. 14).

Evo
-- Gagarin Mars Colony
(Corporate Guide, p. 84) [2072]

• Located at eastern end of Valles Marineris.
• Most of base is underground. May hide military assets.
• c. 60 personnel.
• Water sourced from underground reservoir.
• Three fusion reactors.
• Hydroponics and equivalent to c. 15 hectacres (37 acres!) of crops.
• Supplied by 18 drones in low-energy orbits between LEO and Mars orbit (2 can carry passengers).
• Supply launches from LEO station and Svobodny cosmodrome.
• Has some form of manasphere that it uses for research.
• Mars Research Program developing hypersynthesis solar-collection systems and amplifier fabrics (what?!) (Corporate Guide, p. 89)
• Planned expansion to increase population to 250.
• Possible armed satellites in orbit and missile silos on-site (Almanac, p. 125).

Saeder-Krupp
-- Probes
(Corporate Guide, p. 160) [2072]

• Launched unmanned probe to Mars or its moons to grow an arcology with nanites.

Deep Space
-- Various unmanned space probes to Pluto, Mercury, and the Oort Cloud.
-- Ares planned to send manned mission to Europa in 2064 (p. 84).
-- Saeder-Krupp planned on sending mining survey to the asteroid belt (p. 84).

Ares
-- Helios
(Wastelands, p. 84) [2062]

• Sits at solar LaGrange point.
• Long-range observation of solar system.
• Staging point for deep space operations.
• Super security on supply runs from Daedalus.

Shibata
-- Comm Satellites
(Corporate Guide, p. 84) [2072]

• Mars-Earth comm relay at Sun-Mars L5 (and probably L4).

Personally I think Shadowrun could use a little infusion of something like GURPS Transhuman Space.

That would require developers and writers who motto isn't "math is hard!" I've seen no evidence of this being the case.

Tzeentch,

Thank you very much for the great post, will be using in my next campaign—much to the mage's horror I'm sure

Not using GURPS much myself (since our group sticks mostly to Shadowrun and Pathfinder), is there any difference between GURPS 3 and GURPS 4 with regard to the details in your post ?

-- In Shadowrun's defense it has never been a hard science setting in any meaningful way. I never had any problem with that, unless it impacted the verisimilitude of the game. I'm also not an engineer or physicist, I'm an anthropologist and geographer

-- There is no meaningful difference between GURPS 3e and 4e for vehicles except for the differences in how object HP are calculated. I believe this is addressed in the free GURPS Update pdf.

-- As with anything homebrew this is a work in progress. It appears to give pretty reasonable results for most of the things you would want to know in a Shadowrun game (that shouldn't involve too much space combat). I'm very interested in any references that provide hard numbers of anything space-related that is outside of Wastelands and Corporate Guide.

-- If I don't need to make any major changes I'll take a look at satellite remote sensing capabilities (I work with satellite data as part of my thesis, but translating that to SR4e is hard as I'm not an expert on this edition yet).

Hey, that's what I got my degree in (double major). Of course I've never gotten a job doing either anthropology or geography, computers and field artillery are the only things that people have actually paid me serious money to do....

The persistent willful ignorance of the developers towards anything other then bad action movies and comic books has always annoyed me, but the rampant cluelessness in System Shutdown by everyone involved was pretty astonishing. I had foolishly assumed that at least SOMEONE being paid to write about space would bother to acquire at least a passing familiarity with how orbits worked.

I would start with vehicle weapon rules to see what kind ship to ship weapons are possible (Arsenal 123).

However if we assume that normal physics apply, laser weapons should be dominant.

The problem as I see it, with space combat is that most battles will occur at very extreme ranges, while any ships will be traveling very very quickly (compared to earth speeds). Assuming that Shadowrun doesn't have a technology that cancels inertia (and I didn't find anything of the sort), changing speed and/or direction to a significant degree in a short span of time will be near impossible, even if we ignore energy demands for that sort of thing.

And in Shadowrun laser weapons are powerful enough to destroy most flimsy armor spaceships have.

If I would populate the SR world with spacecraft; I would go for more of a Firefly type of feel to them. Light unarmored smugglers mostly for the runners side, with a few big corporate battleships.

-- Beam weapons will 'reach out and touch someone' very quickly, but unless Shadowrun has grav-focused mirrors (like in Traveller) they will have a number of physical limitations due to diffraction and the small (but meaningful) light-speed lag. Military spacecraft will also be rotating to keep beam dwell time at a minimum (spreading the beam energy over a much greater surface area).
-- Translating this to the Shadowrun vehicle Chase Combat system(SR4A, pp. 169-170) will take some thinking. The relative ranges in particular are tricky.

-- That said, I think that for most practical purposes the only things you really need to know is the acceleration and the delta-V. The other stats are just icing on the cake so that spacecraft are not completely abstracted away as irrelevent (Eclipse Phase) or simply not described at all (Shadowrun).

(Atomic Rocket has an excellent discussion of this and other issues.)


-- At long range and probably with zero human intervention beyond pushing a button to authorize weapons free. Maneuvering would be computer controlled and consist of small microburns to subtly adjust their path in order to cause beam weapons at light-second ranges to miss, or railguns at much shorter ranges (beyond a few dozen kilometers). This is basically Evasive Driving (SR4A, p. 170).

-- Relative speed is not as important a factor if it's predictable -- note a laser really does have a practical maximum range even in space, but a railgun shot from Alpha Centauri could hit a satellite around the Earth if your math was really good and you had time to spare

-- In space, there is nowhere to hide It's doable to armor spaceccraft of course (even sloping the armor like a tank) but that adds mass and raises your operating costs + reduces your acceleration + reduces your overall delta-V available.
-- I'll note the Endymion gets Armor 13, Body 19) = 8 automatic hits on its Body Test. This may look high, but Shadowrun has REALLY ZANY numbers for Body/Armor of large vehicles. Compare to the Partisan submarine for example (Arsenal, p. 111). So spaceraft will not necessarily explode into vapor at the merest touch of a free

-- Wastelands aside, there doesn't appear to be a lot for shadowrunners to do in space right now. The whole concept of "street criminals hired to pull off a heist on the International Space Station" doesn't sound practical does it? Because that's what you would be doing.

hi hi

While there might not be much for street level thugs to do in space, if a Shadowrun team has corp backing, there's a lot of stuff they could be doing. I'm in a game right now where a lot of plot is taking place in space, and although we have yet to visit space ourselves, I have a feeling we will be in the near future.

Corps have habitats in space, they're probably building factories, energy collectors, mining the lunar surface to say nothing of the mars colonization attempts. If I had to make a guess, I would bet that people are still using Hohmann transfers to reach mars, probably around 2-3 months depending on the window. There's lots of opportunity for travel between Earth and the Moon, and I would imagine that most of the megacorps have research facilities in freefall or on the lunar surface. Space would be an interesting place to study dangerous paracritters since it is an environment where they would be unable to use their critter powers.

I don't really expect to see much space combat going on in Shadowrun, but I would imagine that Ares, EVO and Saeder-Krupp at least would have some warships in space (even if they are just modified transports). Delta V and Acceleration are both real important, but if someone is getting into combat, heat sinking capabilities become very important, especially if you are using lasers which run very very hot.

I almost wet my pants when I started reading this thread!
Just a few comments to interject some reality on a subject I know a bit about (technology, engineering and physics).

1. Missiles are dang nice and compact. They would probably remain the workhorse of killing in space.

2. Nuclear propulsion was possible in the 60s technologically. It does have some downsides though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion...r_propulsion%29

3. Don't forget Ion propulsion! that is used nowadays for station keeping and some NASA probes. Yea it has very low acceleration compared to chemical propulsion, but if the distance is long enough and high accel is not needed then its dang good.

4. Solar sails. Could be used in some capacity. a few years ago I went to a nasa conference and found out this mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESSENGER used the basic principle of solar sails to do some maneuvers. Instead of a dedicated sail though they used the solar cell arrays.

*cough cough*

-- I totally agree, but the area has been criminally under-utilized Turning the game into Shadowtech Space (catchy name though) is probably not in the cards, but the interaction between magic and mana warps has always fascinated me, and some of the freelancers hinted at really cool things related to this due to the rules.

-- Aye hence the exposed radiators being a standard design switch. This is an abstraction of the generally more complex radiator requirements from Transhuman Space (and I believe CORPS VDS, I need to re-read that book at some point).

-- Let's conjure some reasons why you would go into space (or teleoperate stuff up there):

* Throw nukes at the bug spirits with relative impunity. If they chase you back, well jokes on them! Ares seems to do this as an experiment (need to find the reference). How they get the nukes there is an interesting question.
* Remove possession. Most possession is impossible or trivially easy to spot (everyone is living in what amounts to an open cargo container). The mana warp also should force any inhabiting spirit to vacate the premises (this is not supported by my reading of the rules, however - there are no notes regarding Inhabitation or Possession in aspected areas. See Street Magic, p. 119-120 for mana voids and p. 118 for Background Count and Magic.
* Local hacks. The quasi-magical wi-fi hacking gives a significant advantage to on-site system intrusion. You would completely bypass the ICE on the uplinks, suffer no lag, and could hack local devices that may be just as useful to you as a datastore.
* Mage prison. Too valuable to kill, but too dangerous to have even in a mage-rated supermax? Shoot them into space.
* Planting bugs. Placing nanobugs to get picked up by the station as it orbits is trivial, but anything too large will just be vaporized by the station housekeeping laser (anything paint-flake size and up). Carrying some surveillance devices (or picking up ones already there) is a job for shadowrunners playing inconspicuous inspectors, tourists, visiting corporate honchos, or maintenance people. NOT a job for the resident troll wielding a mohawk and assault cannon though.
* Sabotage. This could be as simple as releasing a modified fungus that is resistant to the current control mechanisms, infecting yourself with next years flu early before the crew gets their shots, or ensuring the station gets 11mm stem bolts when they need 10mm.

I'd go for running a heist or other more nefarious op for Ares against Evo on Mars.

or perhaps getting a job to cause one of S-Ks installations out at L1 to destabilize and fall into the sun.

Not all of us play street criminals.

They're good at shortish ranges, but you can actually target and destroy them with point defense systems. Rail gun and laser fire...not so much.

-- The railgun armatures could be small missiles themselves - getting a boost before using their own maneuvering rockets to do some trick moves. But solid slugs have the advantage in that they are difficult to 'shoot down' (probably targeted ablation to knock it off course, vaporizing an object is not necessary most of the time).

-- Small spacecraft (Autonomous Kill Vehicles in TS parlance) can fulfill most of the functions of traditional missiles (think Tomahawk rather than TOW). Missiles like in anime that perform those crazy Itano Circus swarms are unlikely.

Space Weapons, Earth Wars
-- BTW, as a brief aside the Shadowrun version of "Thor" shots is ................. well I have no idea where they got the idea that Thor was about agglomerating space junk and shooting it from a massdriver (Target: Wastelands, p. 79). There has been serious work done on this concept and I'll just link the RAND study on this (includes dropping really large things and not just "rods from god"). The most viable concept are penetrator rods with small rocket boosters to kick them out of a LEO "shed" and provide course correction before entering the atmosphere. Shooting a "ball of slag" down is going to present so much surface area that most of it will burn up.

-- I need to update the links, but I have a decent selection of sites on my website as well.

I don't think you should get the ability for evasive driving against c speed weapons. There is no reaction time for anything.

What you can do is what I style a bumble bee flight pattern. Make slight oscillations along your trajectory that are of an erratic nature so to confuse the attacker with beam weapons. If that is what you meant by evasive driving then I agree with you.....though am of the feeling that it should be called something differently. Evasive driving seems to imply to me a reaction of sorts, while this sort of piloting would be preemptive measures.

I think we are aiming at the same thing though, just expressing ourselves a little differently.



Well compared to the Winter Systems ship laser of 16P (-half armor) the Endymion ship will probably last no more then 2 shots. So you will still have time to scream. Just in space no one hears you scream.......unless you are a space marine (oh why is there only one season of that show )



For that I was thinking for a more of a total retcon of the SR setting. Either by moving the timeline say 100 years forward, or just saying that by 2072 metahumanity has colonized the solar system from Venus to the Saturn rings, with several quasi terraformed moons/planets and dozens of space stations....though we might be getting out of the SR setting with that.

A reason for that could be that the non awakened people of the Earth sought refuge amongst the stars against what they perceived to be the awakened threat.

that's not as easy as it sounds. Contrary to hollywood even modern missiles are fast and accelerate up to that speed really quick. With the way missile guidance and senors have advanced most missiles try to hit their target and large proportion of the destructive force comes from their kinetic energy. In fact alot of missiles are faster, by a huge proportion, than any gun's projectile. Its hard to compete with hypersonic and better velocities.

I liked the way Niven had his with the asteroids and small moons being colonized instead of planets. Much easier to be a small frontier miner in the asteroid belt than on a planet where it would be about impossible to sell things to earth.

Oh and the moon should always be colonized. That way there are lunies in the setting.

I'm not sure what you mean by Itano Circus, but as far as swarms... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Kill_Vehicle
I even heard some rumors that it might get funded again.

A high-end cyber mercenary, a mad illusionist, an international tech fixer with far-ranging worldwide connections, an ex military hero remote controlled by a powerful DEUS-like AI and a renewed crack hacker brought back from the brink by way of magic superior AI allknowingness are NOT street level operatives. Neither is Neuromancer a good example of the street level magic noir style SR4 advocates AT ALL. Motoko Kusanagi is more street level than that.

It REALLY would be nice if people who bring up Neuromancer as an example of street level play would actually read beyond the first few chapters.

Also, Neuromancer assumes a lot more activity in space. More like 2001. The setting is hard to compare directly.


That said, Very nice ideas, Tzeeench. Sadly, this is much better done with SR3 and it\\\'S ship fighting rules, which work notably better with large vehicles than SR4A whch is designed around street level magic noir and not Battle of Midway in Outer space, despite a number of glaring weirdnesses (like the rigged Nimitz easily dodging a pistol fired at it midship sideways at point blank range). Maybe taking ideas from that system would work better than space stations with body of 80+.


The Yamatetsu Mars expedition took around a year to reach their destination.


What for? To burn funds they could better invest into something that actually turns out profits? They all have Surface-orbit-missiles, earthbound or airborne laser platforms, and mist have an armed habitat. What would they need space warships for? They can smack anything out of earth space they want, and the moon or Mars are too far away and too thinly populated to warrant any kind of armament going on beyond having a few suborbital transports ready who can release nukes and/or mount a laser module they can use to zap lunar/martian installations.


Not so much opportunity beyond supply runs for the installations and the occasional scientific or exploratory probe, if you ask me. Also, what\\\'s the point of studying critters that go boom as soon as you leave the Gaiasphere because they\\\'re dual natured and cannot switch off the warp they get into, like a mage can?

And there are already four Lagrange stations, two of them derelict and up for anyone\\\'s picking. No nescessity to build new stuff that\\\'s prohibitively expensive when you can recycle old stuff for a fraction of the price, eh?

reading more than a few chapters of a book? CRAZY TALK!!!!

Source must be either corp download or target wastelands, since that is where the writeup of AresSpace happened. Also, Ares decied on a different approach to the bugs, more of a Wayland-Yutani than a Starship Troopers type.


I\\\'m intrigued. Care to elaborate? If that means my remark on paracritters is rendered wrong, I\\\'m not too unhappy about that either.


Definitly, but this can be done in LEO too. Much easier to maintain to boot.


On the countrary, Railgun fire can just as easily be deflected by hitting it with enough energy to sufficiently alter it\\\'s course. Should work almost as well as missile destruction (which wouldn\\\'t mean the missile to go poof anyway, but tot urn it at a rain of shrapnel moving at impressive speed towards you; hope your ship\\\'s casing is up to the impact). Destroying the guidance and alterig course would probably work better for a missile.


Inertia is working against that.


The Ares Heimdall should be a good template.


That was, to my understanding, the original design of the Thor system, based on discarded designs from the Regan era.


More power to you to write up your own system, but that is a concept that works worse with SR than including Cthulhutech D-Engines and hybrid Horror/Cyber mecha called Engels.

I would really prefer a low-tech approach to Shadowrun Space. High SciFi is a dime a dozen out there, and most of it I personally consider stale and boring after n+2 iterations in popular fiction. And it always assumes infinite ressources, a concept that clashes very, very badly with SR\\\'s world.

YES.

oh and as far as a missile with a rail gun in it... besides the engineering impossibility; one should consider that it is much more effective to simply have a detonation accelerate tungsten rods at the target as is done with current tech. No need to over fictionalize technology just for the sake of using the impossible.

I think the idea was to fire a missile from a railgun, as a 'first stage' kind of acceleration, so the missile can save on weight and still be as fast as if it had another booster stage. Kind of like a miniature mass driver type space launch system, only in space and with missiles.

-- The SR3 scaling rules were a bit wonky as it was, and from what I understand were judged too complex by many players (i.e. compltely ignored). The concept was logical: splitting vehicles into different scales so that what really mattered was the relative numbers between those at the same scale (similar idea to Palladium's SDC vs. MDC or Mekton's Hits vs. Kills). In practice it was problematic as people would just assign numbers to stuff willy-nilly.
-- Shadowrun Body appears to correspond to mass in some arcane way, but the progression is non-obvious as it incorporates a lot of wiggle room for "ruggedness" which is why my conversion uses the GURPS Health stat and not the mass-derived Hit Point stat (which incidently limits almost all converted designs to Body 16 - 19 -- even gigantic stations -- which might not be a good tact).
* For example, The Tata Hotspur off-road car has the same Body as the B&V Spitzenreiter patrol boat.

-- Hmm. A standard Hohmann transfer orbit would take about 8.5 months to reach Mars IIRC. The extra time might have included preflight checks, waiting at the geostationary transfer point for the synodic period, and settling in to a good orbit around Mars.

Update: As a point of comparison SotA64 p. 161 states that the Yamatetsu Tereshkova Mars Mission took 6 months to reach Mars (launched in February 2063).

don't forget that the time it takes to go from one planet to another depends alot on where the planets are at the time. I did some earth to mars transfer calculations last year and seem to remember 8 months to a 2 years being the upper and lower limits. Orbital phase differences mean as much and sometimes more than how far apart their orbital paths are apart. Well at least for time of travel not really for energy to change orbits.

hi hi

The amount of untapped wealth in space is enough to boggle the mind. As soon as some amount of manufacturing base is lifted into space, either the Moon or the asteroid belt, it wouldn't take it very long to become self sufficient, and eventually become a net exporter to Earth instead of the other way around.

• They would need space warships to back up claims to widely spread resources against rival corps (space is a very very big place) If you have a couple dozen mining and manufacturing operations running in the belt, you might want to build a ship or two instead of a few dozen stationary defenses.
• They would need space warships if they wanted a weapons platform in space that could potentially escape destruction in the event of a conflict. Satellites and habitats make easy targets against technological rivals with surface-orbit missiles or earthbound lasers, not to mention the resulting debris field. Warships would be able to evade. (You could put engines on a satellite, but then its really a warship then, isn't it?)

I think perhaps you are reading the wrong science fiction if that is the case. Space is a certainly a difficult place to operate, but it holds riches to sate desires both subtle and gross. I think space travel fits in very nicely with the theme of the haves vs the have nots in SR.

I think the reference was to the plethora of space operas available, not the few hard science authors.I think Assimov's Empire is the sci fi being referenced, which would fit SR like a square peg in a monkey. The same is true of most sci fi sources where travel times are tiny, speeds are huge, and the engines are tiny compared to the creature comforts.

hi hi

I guess I'm on the fence about rules for space travel in SR, bad rules might be worse than no rules, but that just means that each GM who wants to do something in space has to make stuff up themselves or forget about it.

As for the Mars mission, the first few probably had to take longer because they needed to save fuel for the return trip, while subsequent missions would be able to refuel at Mars for the return trip and thus would be able to use more DV going each way.

-- True. However, this isn't a sure-fire hit because despite the balkanized Shadowrun world situation there is no shortage of access to necessary minerals Never mind how people mine and market certain rare rare earth metals in countries so crapsack they don't even have shadowrunner plot hooks
-- The capital startup costs are certainly lower then they used to be by 2070 (SR nanotech could conceivably grow a habitat on an asteroid for example), and there are useful things that the megacorps want to use space for -- but mining doesn't seem to be one of them. Noone is out looking for nickle-iron asteroids or mining the Lunar soil for helium-3 or anything. Shadowrun space development is oriented towards materials research, production of items that require microgravity, dangerous magical research (using the mana warp as a buffer), and looking for dragon artifacts on Mars (I thought that was intended as a joke, but it seems to be played straight now).

-- Depends on what they are after. If its mineral-rich asteroids it might be unnecessary to defend anything but the richest claim as there is no shortage of them out there. If phlebotinum is discovered on one of them (natural orichalcum maybe) then all bets are off of course . If development requires fixed installations (moon base for example) one danger is someone accelerating an asteroid at your site, which might require mobile warships to do something about (shades of the movie Armageddon).

-- Sitting in MEO or GEO makes any earth to orbit strike almost impossible, while the vice versa is not so cut and dry (the ultimate high ground).
-- It doesn't make a lot of sense for anyone to build a dedicated warship in Shadowrun at the moment; if they did they would probably resemble very large unmanned drones (keeping people in them is crazy expensive and you probably won't expect them to survive long anyways). Conveniently this gives shadowrunners something to do if you implement such a plot -- disabling or misdirecting the standby warships hanging out in high orbit (conceptually you can think of them like the Reapers in Mass Effect ).

So your going to huge a huge honking magnetic field to fire a device that has active electronics on it? Magnetic fields produced by running huge amounts of electric power, on the order of a million amps, through the projectile? Good luck with that.

-- Fired from a coilgun most likely. A railgun launch system might work as well as the electronics components can be shielded and most the charge will be flowing through the outer shell. At least, something like that is the plan for the current Navy system. The huge acceleration stress is another issue that needs to be addressed.

hi hi

Mining Uranium in space makes a lot of sense at least. It is rare on Earth (unlike, ironically enough, so called rare earth elements) Much less concern for safety, and a lot of the applications for it are useful in space to begin with.

Assuming there are no solar flares, everybody can handle living in a can, and no asteroid decides to prematurely end you colony's life by colliding with it. Also, the exloration of ressources (you cannot just start mining any asteroid, after all, most are silicon and ice, of which there is plenty on earth) and the initial investment to set up the colony are much more than the return would jutify, unles you plan in canturies. And nobody does that.

Ressources just are not rare enough in SR to justify mining space.


Considering response times in space, that doesn't make much sense. If your base depended on a ship coming to save it in a matter of months, it better have good local defense, too, because most enemies will not announce their attacks several months prior.

And that is assuming the corps want to again waste huge sums on space warships, and don't just agree on not attacking each others' space installations above sabotage level and Omega Order every corp (or government) which builds a warship - which would be a damn lot cheaper, even though it would also prohigit space warships.


What, you don't like Asamondo?


The best conceivable reason for massive space borne habitats still is that the Horrors cannot survive in space any more than any kind of spirit can. But that was canned with Proteus. And it would not be necessary now, but could be slowly built, which might be a reason why SR space is happening *at all*.

Personally, I play the Dragons a bit like lovecraftian Elder Beings - having had their own high magic civilisation long ago and essentially being a dying species.


Shadowrun advanced electronics (like in cyberware) usually use tech that laughs at magnetic fields, making this somewhat feasible.


It also is not very much needed, given how there is cold fusion available and nukes have become strangely unreliable (and nuclear plants have developed an alarming tendency to explode for no reason).

Urgh. And why not add time travel, resurrection magic and teleportation while we're at it ... sorry, but if you need to invent plebothium to make something work in a setting, it can be assumed that it doesn't work well within the setting.


I don't. It's too Star Wars for my taste, and that does not fit a universe that thinks primarily in terms of economic feasibility. Sure, Space as a backdrop is nice, and I'd really like to see the near-earth stuff developed more, but even interplanetary level is pushing it, and space warships ... sorry, just no.

Besides, purely for exploration and exploitation, robotic components are the way to go. People only cause problems in space and solve next to nothing. As I said, the only conceivable reason would be to use space as a shelter for the coming scourge, which most of the powers that be are at least vaguely aware of.

But there already is a game that covers just that idea. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Well unless S-K's mining operations on the moon (CD 86) are a complete cover up that they are loosing money on (which would be a sucky cover up considering it would be more obvious than something that makes money). It looks like space mining is done already and is economically feasible. Considering that the moon would be about the crappiest place to look for valuble resources on since it is similar to the crust of earth and there are many nickle iron asteroids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_meteorite. Also, if mining the moon works economically the asteroid belt would be very doable from energy considerations. Note: it takes less energy to go to the asteroid belt and return than to go to the moon and return, also ion thrusters can be used since big gravity wells don't have to be overcome.

Yes, and the belt is also full of small high-velocity objects that will hit and damage your minig operation. It's not getting there that is the problem, it is surviving.

SK is covering up that it is building a Caer (or secret villain lair for Lofwyr) on the moon, that's the only explanation that actually makes some sense. And it IS a bad cover because space mining is NOT economically feasible (how to return the payload to earth, for instance?). SK claims to mine some rare ressources there, but since there is nothing badly needed that is exceedingly rare on Earth, I see no way this could be economically feasible.

hi hi

Maybe thats because they're getting an extra supply from the mining the mining operations in space. Just a thought. Even if you are mining the exact same materials in space that you are on Earth, every ounce of material in space comes with the added bonus of having at least an extra 11.2 kilometers per second worth of energy with it.

Actually they will announce their attack as soon as they leave earth, which will also be months away.

Nuclear plants are unstable in the gaiasphere, but there has been no indication that the magical interference has extended into space. Furthermore, there are still a lot of things you can do with radioactive materials that you can't do with fusion. Not to mention that the gauge limit on fission powered devices is much smaller that fusion, allowing it to be used in more remote applications.

Year of the Comet, it already happened, too bad.

Wow, that is an amazing argument, I am clearly defeated. You are of course welcome to run Shadowrun how ever you like, but you'll forgive me if I don't take your opinion to heart.

Maybe some people like to breathe clean air?

This is blatantly false. The asteroid belt is a relatively stable place where, contrary to popular belief, you would have to try very hard to hit anything. "Collisions between main belt bodies with a mean radius of 10 km are expected to occur about once every 10 million years."

Another possible example is copper. While there is a great deal of copper in the Earth's crust, most of it is in very low concentrations or hard to reach places that would require expensive methods to retrieve. With about a 25 to 60 year supply of easy to tap reserves remaining from today's standpoint it is not hard to imagine that in the future retrieving copper from the moon or the asteroid belt might be more economically viable than extracting it from some ultra low density deposit on Earth.

Not sure about minig operations...

The nice thing about mining stuff from space is then you have plenty of stuff to build things with including shielding to protect from that stuff. Reaction mass is still going to be a little problematic but again that just means finding a different type of mineral in space. I would think the technical difficulties of the belt would be why it isn't currently being exploited. I just think that would be the next believable spot to go.


Care to substantiate that with some references or are you speculating?

No, it's because they mine the oceans. Much easier to get the ore back up and process it than in space, where there's always the gravity well.


What are you refering to? Everything mined in space has to come to where it is needed. Brring a space elevator, that requires shuttles that have to be rocketed into space, burning far more money than the ore is worth. And simply crashing it down will burn must of the orde, and cause all kinds of destruction on earth (and burn even more on impact). With SR technology, or real technology for that matter, space mining just isn't feasible at all.


That is no naturally occurring orichalcum. It was hidden there in the 4th world. That is rather unlikely to happen in space.


Nope, it hasn't. But what is the point in looking for uranium in space to build power plants in space that are absolutly irrelevant to the planet which is supposed to benefit from them? And Fusion generates plenty of less radioactive materials, which fulfill all your medical needs (with essentially unlimited hydrogen supply by fusion power and hydrolysis, small scale nuclear power is unfeasible too compared to fuel cells).


Yeah. I am more thinking of small objects that would be unknown since they are too small to be observed from earthspace. Those can be devastating to space ships too, since they tend to poke holes into them.


They can always book a flight to Spokane. And clean air in space ... right. reprocessed, smelly air and the constant smell of the biofilm that always seems to develop in any life support system. Mmmh, clean air.


Which is why undersea mining is awesome.


Pure speculation. The only somewhat canonic source on this is the Shockwaves campaign, and it deals with Shiawase, MCT, and two Eurocorps collaborating to that end. I am speculating S-K does the same. Since T:WL and Corp DL were written in parts by the samepeople, for all I know, that wrote Shockwaves.


The really nice thing, though, is you don't only have to mine the stuff, you also have to bring it back somehow. Even with a space elevator, that's an awesome lot of mass that needs pushing, and a ship that will be very vulnerable to impact from minor objects and thus, annihilation, loss of investment, and disaster fro the mining operation.

I still don't see in the least where this is even remotely feasible, economically. And sillyness such as Horizon aside, SR does take this into account usually.

hi hi

You get what you can, where you can.

And suppose it is needed in space? Lots of prime real estate up there for the taking.

Blunt body capsules are actually very effective at protecting payloads and incredibly cheap. The heat load experienced by an entry vehicle was inversely proportional to the drag coefficient.

I'm sorry, but you're not going to be able to appeal to authority on this one. Referencing Star Wars doesn't count.

Contrary to popular belief, the Earth is actually not the center of the universe. (people are, )

Small scale nuclear power is unfeasible too compared to fuel cells?I guess nobody told NASA

Why use fission power in space?Why not ask an expert? Until fusion reactors in Shadowrun become small enough that people are driving around cars powered by them, you can expect that fission energy will be useful.

Space is big, really big, it is hard for people to wrap their minds around just how big space really is and how much emptiness you have to work with. Everyone in space has to worry about micro-meteorites, regardless of where they are operating, though in the asteroid belt it may be even less of a worry because they are not being drawn in by a gravity well. For anything bigger, a station-keeping laser would be enough to deflect a course, or you could just move out of the way.

Because deep water mining operations are real easy and cheap and have no consequences at all. *cough* BP gulf of mexico *cough* Sorry, I couldn't resist a little sarcasm, I hope you won't hold it against me.

It already is in real life, Fixed Satellite Services are already a multi billion dollar industry. Being able to place satellites without the need to lift from the Earth's surface would be a huge advantage.

Just curious, but at that point, why not just use Eclipse Phase... It is a very interesting system, and covers most of what has been discussed here...

Keep the Faith

... where getting it nets you more than you spend.


Yes, prime real estate on the moon, buy yours today! (SCNR)

That prime real estate is worthless because doing anything with it is an investment that gains you next to nothing and costs you too dearly.


'Cheap' being a relative term. And we're not talking about payloads of a few hundred grams of comet dust, but several dozen tons, at the very least, for this to make sense.


Contrary to your belief, it is where the SR setting happens. So yes, when regarding SR's economy, it IS.


Because everything that needs powering is a space drone. And have you noticed how many concerns have been raised by this thing, because space travel ends up with things blowing up more often than not? Nobody wants to be doused in radioactives because someone wanted to find out what Saturn looks like up close.

Yeah, they are useful in space. Where nobody needs to go because there is nothing that is very interesting economically. They are not useful on earth.


*rolls eyes* Lack of education, you mean. Well, you have already used plenty of this. Your argumentation is circular and repetitive, and when it doesn't get you anywhere you try trolling. To help you out here, manganese is a keyword, not oil. Find the rest out by yourself.


Not because there are so many sattelites, though, but because building them and putting them into place is so expensive. It would not return the investment into the huge infrastructure required instead to build sattelites in space entirely.

Where else are these sattelites going to come from, huh? Who will design and build them? Who will build the factories for sattelite production? And who will have use for more than a few hundred sattelites anyway? Orbit is packed as is. You cannot cram infinite sattelites into orbit. Your space factory would never pay for itself.

And that is not even taking into account most people looking to build a sattelite will want to do so themselves because the sattelite is supposed to be secret. SatteliteCo of yours would simply not be trusted by most customers. Politics.


Which makes space operations even more unfesible if they are supposed to make economic sense.


The asteroid belt generates enough attraction for small objects. And, unlike what most sci fi would have you believe, small objects the size of a bullet traveling at stellar speeds can do immense damage to something as vulnerable as a space craft already. And with no help coming, a simple puncture may well doom your entire operation. That's a risk few corporations would be willing to take for ore they can mine in the pacific at a fraction of the cost and with much reduced risk.

You can't rely on Star Wars as the authoritative source for space stuff.

hi hi

Hmm, interesting. I wonder if you would cite your source? I'll cite mine. p.100 Arsenal.


No U?

Manganese Nodules are great for a handful of different elements, but if you want anything else, you're out of luck. Also, there's at most 378 years worth of copper in all the Manganese Nodule deposits (assuming 100% efficiency in mining, which you really ought not to) at 2009 rates of consumption. However, consumption has nearly doubled since 1990 and hasn't had any significant decline ever, so one can assume that consumption rates will continue to increase. At the current rate of increase in consumption, between now and 2072, you could expect that the megacorps would be looking for a new source within a few decades or so, or they're really going to have to increase their recycling efforts. And that is just for copper. If you want other elements, like silver, gold, platinum, rhenium or indium you'll have to look elsewhere. (rhenium goes for $6,000 a kilogram btw)

A factory, the megacorps, the megacorps and the megacorps.

Micro-meteorites are a concern, but not a great concern. Technology available today is enough to deal with them.

Target wastelands, pp69. The mining referenced seems to be SK's, because SK still is the only corp with significant spacemining assets (Which, as have been mentioned earlier, probably aren't even mining operations).

And where would a mass driver helpmining operations, where the tough part is getting the mined ore back planetside? Another logical blunder of Arsenal.


And it is naive to assume every belt object is known, as well as the risks of small meteorites does not exist. Not saying you couldn't mine the belt if you really wanted to, but that the precautions necessary would consume so much money the entire venture would never refinance.


With China nonexistent, the world population being smaller than the current one, and recycling at a high, 2009 consumption is a safer assumption than projections from the real world for 2070. 300 years worth of mining are enough to not start space exploration immediatly, though. Makes no economical sense to go for the hard to exploit stuff when there is easy money lying about that will get you through the next several centuries, really.


And what for? And where would they keep these sattelites?


That's nice for Kazakhstan, but Rhenium isn't an element that is used in a wide variety of applications. Silver and Gold can more easily be mined earthside (with earth spirits, geological exploration must be incredibly easy, just make them use the search power) for some time before considering space, and while rarer, probably for Platinum too.

hi hi

Target Wastelands is at least a decade out of date, and it was only speculation that the mining operations stated in the book were not actually mining operations.

A mass driver helps reduce the initial investment cost.

De-orbiting is not that hard.

You don't have any figures for the costs of micro-meteor precautions.

You will want a wide range of elements, and while you are there, you might as well help yourself to the more common ones too.

Rhenium is used in modern jet engines.

Not exactly a huge capacity market, given it is only used in low percentage alloys.


No, you will want stuff you can sell at prices that return your investment. Also, different elements demand different ways of extraction and purification, so you need to consider what to take with you since all the infrastructure has to be present in your mining expedition, unless you want to haul around ore, which gets you into the hundreds of metric tons of haul really fast (and will be difficult to get back thanks to inertia, unless you haul around even more fuel, which increases your mass ...


No, that the mining operations are weird is canon (pp83). What is behind them was speculation.


Getting several tons of matter down without most of it burning or impacting and burning is.


Aside from the fact the customer sure pays for the cost of rotecting the mass driver, the initial investment isn't the only problem narrowing the potential return. There is the maintainance of the ship on-site, there is the potential loss of the entire operation you need insurance to cover, and there is the problem of getting the metals back (or the ore, if you have too many reentry vehicles lying about).


Since SR never touched upon that, I do not. Do you?

hi hi

emphais mine

All the building blocks are out there already, you just need to bring the fabricators.

Silica isn't exactly hard to come by in space.

It has already been covered, but for a refresher.
• A laser.
• A handful of station-keeping thrusters.
• A Radar/Lidar. ¥1200
• A layer of whipple shielding, either with modern materials[1] or by using the raw materials of the asteroid or lunar surface[2].


over the long term, you're going to have replacement surfaces available, given the nature of being able to mine a vast quantity of relevant materials.