Re: Colonizing a Neutron Star

"Erik Max Francis" <max@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:wM-dnYhol_IMEsPbnZ2dnUVZ_t-mnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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

To live on? Because it's neat?
I dunno. I haven't gotten to the purpose yet. Need to figure out how it
would be done first, as it why anyone would want to live on a tideworld near
a neutron star seems a bit irrelevant if they can't.

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.

I expect that depends on how far you're willing to stretch what counts as
practical.
If nothing more elegant is available, there's always the option of just
pilling on the mass to take care of radiation. I'm much more concerned about
the magnetic fields; I suppose if there really is no way to effectively
shield against them (Oo, what about active cancelling? Put big solenoids
around the habitat sections or something), the structure could just be moved
out to a safe distance, and/or built around a less magnetic NS.

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.

Well, there is a lot of energy available, and a rather large reaction mass
available with a magnetic field through which to transfer momentum to it.

-l.
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