On 16 Oct 2016 at 18:17, Christopher Sean Hilton wrote:

> I'm thinking about sources of hydrogen in a system because I'm seeing
> a few extended system that have neither gas giants nor ice/fluid
> worlds.
>
> Firstly, I say fluid because I assume that someone with a fusion plant
> has enough energy at there disposal to electrically or otherwise
> seperate hydrogen from any Carbon-Hydrogen or Nitrogen-Hydrogen
> compound without too much work. My first question is: "Is this a good
> assumption?"
>
> Secondly, as I look at extended systems, I find that there are many
> that feature neither fluid nor "ice" nor gas giants. In such a system
> I would figure that the only source of hydrogen would be the Oort
> Cloud. In Sol Terra, this region starts at about 11 light-days
> (wikipedia) from the Sol. Is this beyond the endurance range of a ship
> that hasn't got enough fuel to jump?
>
> I would figure that this would seriously depress trade within such a
> system. At least it would make such a system dependent on a fleet of
> fuel tankers which regularly run from the mainworld to the oort cloud
> and back. Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Asteroid belts inside the "ice line" may still have carbonaceous
chondrites. They've got heavier hydrocarbons and other organics.
They'd get processed for the carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, all of
which are needed for life support systems.

Ones *outside* the ice line will have icy bodies as well as the other
assortment of asteroid types.

and, there will be comets and the like that pass thru the inner
system. In a system like you are talking about, they'd probably have
ships drop a processing module on tyhem as soon as they are spotted
and process them for hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and anything else you
can't get from "rocky" bodies.

So you probably don't have to go all the way out to the Oort cloud.

The "ice line" in our system is a bit oinside Jupiter's orbit.

Mind you, if there aren't GGs and there aren't worlds with apprciable
fluid percentages, they system must have formed from, a nebula that
was poor in volatiles, so expect all the things I've mentioned to be
a lot rarer than in a normal system. But they should still be around
to some extent.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com