Re: Colonizing a Neutron Star
- From: Erik Max Francis <max@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 02:04:14 -0700
Logan Kearsley wrote:
I'm wondering now, though, how exactly one might go about building a space
habitat around a neutron star. I like using a tide world both just because
you can, and because that provides an excuse to have some really long
tethers involved which could be used for generating large amounts of
electricity as the neutron star's magnetic field sweeps by. I expect you
could get some electricity out of the radiation environment- young, hot ones
will be glowing a bit in visible light if nothing else works out- but mining
the star's rotational kinetic energy via its magnetic field would provide
enormously more power.
The bigger question here for me would be context. What would the purpose be for such a structure? If it's primarily to get easy artificial gravity, there are much easier ways. If it's to generate power, then it can be automated, as there's no strong need for the structure to be habitable, since it's really hard to imagine how, what with the radiation and magnetic fields, such a place could ever be made practically habitable. Regardless of all that, it's going to be awfully, awfully difficult to get in and out of the area due to the huge gravity well, so if energy stores have to be transported or something like that, that puts a huge damper on the process.
--
Erik Max Francis && max@xxxxxxxxxxx && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
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-- Zhane
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- Colonizing a Neutron Star
- From: Logan Kearsley
- Colonizing a Neutron Star
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