Why are Honorverse Heavy Industries off Planet?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:As for waste products that you don't recycle, just flush them out the airlock as a gas or liquid and allow the solar wind to blow them away.

I believe most of them are contained and dropped into a convenient gas giant rather than just vented. At least that way they stay where you put them. (referenced in text as to what was done with Grayson's spent fission waste products, IIRC)

TFLYTSNBN wrote:In the Honorverse, a lot of people commute to jobs in space and they utilize products that are shipped to and from orbit.

Almost no one does so. One of the reasons for orbital habitats is to minimize this. Everyone who worked on Hephaestus lived there, not commuted.

Let me introduce you to Gerard K O'Neill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill

and the High Frontier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_ ... s_in_Space

https://ssi.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfkEV5Sq0pk

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Most raw materials in the Honorverse come from asteroid mining, comets, gas mining from Jovian planets. Given the technology, this should be orders of magnitude cheaper than surface mining. Orbital industries have far better access to raw materials.

As for waste products that you don't recycle, just flush them out the airlock as a gas or liquid and allow the solar wind to blow them away.

Fusion energy is great but it requires fuel and expensive machinery. A solar collector in space is just a frame with aluminum film.

Jonathan's notion also has to be considered for the quick availability of aftermarket items.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Heat!

I offer this somewhat simplistic but informative article to make the point.

[snip]
There is also the possibility that Honorverse technology utilizes super heavy elements that are created by fusing heavy elements such as Uranium. Better increase that energy budget by yet another order of magnitude. Temperature increase is then about 50 Kelvin. Now you are broiling your planet.

We will ignore the energy budget of multimillion ton spaceships that accelerate to a very large fraction of the speed of light.

The spaceships don't count because they don't contribute heat to the planet, as they are already in space. Similar for the orbital smelters. Which is why those things should happen in space, where you can just radiate away instead of dumping said heat into your biosphere. I agree totally with you.

But in any case, interesting and intriguing post. And if you watch enough of Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur (which I do), you'll see he often claims the maximum population of planet, of a colony ship, etc. is limited by its ability to radiate heat. Unless there's some clarketech that allows us to dump it via a different mechanism, you have to limit your population's energy consumption or you have to limit your population.

The most likely culprit for us is the hyperspace. The same way that you can use a gravity sump to violate inertia and extract energy from a higher band, it should be possible to dump waste energy there. How? I don't have a clue. The First Law of Thermodynamics would indicate that energy flows from higher potentials to lower. If you can extract usable energy from hyperspace, then you shouldn't be able to dump waste energy there.

And if you can do that, then you basically have free energy. Why do ships need fusion reactors and hydrogen bunkerage?

Pardon my bold to call attention.

Well, indirectly they do. I'm certain the Treecats would agree the MA brought a lot of heat with them and made it mighty damn hot down on the planet.

'Ouch!' Stop throwing things! LOL

I've said all along that RFC probably didn't initially consider all the ramifications when he devised the unique physics for the Honorverse. Think of the energy needed to accelerate a 6MT SD(P) at 500 gravities for hours. Think of how hard it would be to hide waste heat when stealthing ships. Think of a pistol like pulsar where every dart has the muzzle energy of a 50 cal, yet people can fire bursts without extreme recoil.
The same physics would apply to heavy industry, but I imagine it would have to be in space to be practical.

Daryl wrote:I've said all along that RFC probably didn't initially consider all the ramifications when he devised the unique physics for the Honorverse. Think of the energy needed to accelerate a 6MT SD(P) at 500 gravities for hours. Think of how hard it would be to hide waste heat when stealthing ships. Think of a pistol like pulsar where every dart has the muzzle energy of a 50 cal, yet people can fire bursts without extreme recoil.
The same physics would apply to heavy industry, but I imagine it would have to be in space to be practical.

No doubt you're correct Daryl, but as far as OBS and the first couple of books, the author had to balance not impinging on a readers intelligence, and appealing to those readers who don't care about the nuts and bolts. He has to draw readers in. I don't generally care about the nuts and bolts myself, and could care less about what's under the hood of a warship, just that it arrives just in time with the cavalry in tow. An author must try to appeal to all readers, at least in the beginning, to get as many as possible to wade out into the water so he can hook them.

There are just some readers who don't read books or consume movies with a sliderule. We just like the entertainment value and don't want to miss the forest for the trees wondering why Superman's arms of steel don't slice Lois into shreds when he suddenly catches her and breaks her fall.

I certainly understand, rather acknowledge, the type. One of my sisters is the worse kind. She hates Sci-Fi with a passion, and often thinks the authors are smoking schit that would make the Stilthies proud.

With OBS, RFC struck the perfect balance which reads exquisitely, not impeded by technical jargon losing the excitement and the intimacy of storyline in the forest. Making OBS the best space opera ever written.

d-eye wrote:Let me introduce you to Gerard K O'Neill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill

and the High Frontier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_ ... s_in_Space

https://ssi.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfkEV5Sq0pk

I was one of the early members of the L-5 society.
The basic premise that an advanced, high energy civilization is incompatible with a planetary environment remains valid. Even if you have plenty of energy and can contain wastes effectively, the waste heat generated by your technology will eventually become a serious problem. While I am a heretic that rejects AGW Theology because the presumed CO2 - H2O vapor feedback remains an unproven assumption, the fundamental argument that the excess heat resulting from a high technology civilization WILL become a serious problem is valid.

The only fundamental difference between the L-5 Society and the the AGW Theocracy is the proposed solution. The L-5 Society advocated outsourcing energy generation (Solar Power Satellytes) and most resource extraction and energy intensive industries off planet to minimize environmental impact of human civilization. The L-5 Society also advocated that a large fractionon of the human population as well as the powerplant construction and operation, Lunar, asteroid, and gas giant mining workforces would eventually immigrate off planet. Beanstalks might offer an interesting hybrid alternative. The AGW Theocracy advocates severely restricting per capita human energy use (except for the self annointed elites who proselytize AGW Theology) while imposing draconian restrictions on reproduction and possible liquidation of surplus populations to save the planet.

Love the question -- here's my thoughts.

In the "posited century", there's general population stability within the carrying capacity of at least most inhabited planets, and they're still within a relatively small chunk of the Milky Way. I think it would be kinda marvelous to build onto the Honorverse by someone discovering a useful wormhole to the backside of nowhere... but one that leads to another junction like Manticore's. Empty planets and we send a combination of Sphinxians, Graysons, Manticorans, Havenites, Talbotters, etc. off on a grand adventure.

They wouldn't start out mining the planet: gotta solve the agriculture and medical problems first. So you send mining crews along with your explorers to do what? Set up useful orbtal industries to do things like building a couple of orbital farms and a habitat or two so folks don't go ship crazy. Fuel? Hey that nearby gas giant will do nicely for the next several hundred thousand years. And eventually we get to go down to the planets and learn new things, find cool import export stuff, maybe new intelligent species, etc. Book series, travel vids, and tourism ensue. All that's left is to build housing, and figure out how much agriculture we need on planet.

That's why the heavy industry is in orbit. It's not needed down there where gravity will just make things difficult.

Presuming you have a culture with a tech level and equipment on a par with a "developed" world in the Honorverse, you have all sorts of equipment and knowlege available to build the kind of things in planetary orbits that have been described.
Transfer station(s) for movement between starfaring ships (and in-system ships) and the planitary surface. That's the whole contergrave shuttle or freight shuttle portion.
Habitats. Industrial platforms.
You see all of that with Beowulf. What Manticore had was three primary stations (one each habital planet) and a whole bunch of smaller stuff- that is changing now post-Oyster Bay
Then you have a large number of systems that don't have much beyond the primary

What we are being shown is that, for anyplace that is able to build industry in space which can be supported by at least the markert/needs for the products on the planet, they are putting it in space. The problem is that that is places with good sized populations and a good tech base and the ability to get the capital or financing to do it (and, of course, train the people)
What we are also being shown is that these systems are also manufacturing for export and/or to create and grow their own capabilities to make things they need: that would include counter-gravity shuttles, in-system ships, starships of various types and all the equipment, electronics, enviornmental systems etc that you need.
Space is dangerous and unforgiving. On the other hand, there is a LOT of usable materials out there that is both already in space and you are going to need a lot of material to build your stations, ships, smelters, and everything else.
Keeping all the waste products and slag from mining, smelting,and everthing that goes into fabricationg anything from space ships & shuttles to tractor parts for your farms and electrical and communications equipment is worth the expence of not doing it on the planitary surface. The technology exists to build everything you have described- heck you can probably buy stock plans for proven designed with all the nessisary safety and secuirty pieces and if you can't already make the stuff yourself, somebody will sell you a turn-key operations
Where systems want to get to is being able to build out the whole package themselves but mostly what they are going to start with is smaller operations and try to grow it.
We don't get to see the actual costs but this is what was described when you look at the Manticore Acendent series. They need to build their own warships, but first they need to create the industrial base and their own ability to aquire the basic materials and create the stuff they need to build the infrastructure. They also need to make this profitable (more than pay for itself) and make more of what the home commerical and consumer markerts need so they can stop importing it. At the same time they need to be able to sell some of this stuff on the export markets to bring or keep the manufacturing volume high enough to make the profit and reduce the costs of goods to the their own system.

Simple and hard at the same time.

SharkHunter wrote:Love the question -- here's my thoughts.

In the "posited century", there's general population stability within the carrying capacity of at least most inhabited planets, and they're still within a relatively small chunk of the Milky Way. I think it would be kinda marvelous to build onto the Honorverse by someone discovering a useful wormhole to the backside of nowhere... but one that leads to another junction like Manticore's. Empty planets and we send a combination of Sphinxians, Graysons, Manticorans, Havenites, Talbotters, etc. off on a grand adventure.

They wouldn't start out mining the planet: gotta solve the agriculture and medical problems first. So you send mining crews along with your explorers to do what? Set up useful orbtal industries to do things like building a couple of orbital farms and a habitat or two so folks don't go ship crazy. Fuel? Hey that nearby gas giant will do nicely for the next several hundred thousand years. And eventually we get to go down to the planets and learn new things, find cool import export stuff, maybe new intelligent species, etc. Book series, travel vids, and tourism ensue. All that's left is to build housing, and figure out how much agriculture we need on planet.

That's why the heavy industry is in orbit. It's not needed down there where gravity will just make things difficult.

I do not believe that the Honorverse has " population stability.". The Honorverse simply has cheap access to new colonies that people can emigrate to if their homeworld limits reproductive opportunities.