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From: psc@lzwi.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: What an advanced race would come far to get...
Message-ID: <191@lzwi.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 23:26:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: lzwi.191
Posted: Sun Jul  7 23:26:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 05:36:04 EDT
References: <2389@topaz.ARPA> <467@mmintl.UUCP> <1255@uwmacc.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T-IS Enhanced Network Services
Lines: 45
Keywords: water, V, The Martian Way, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
Summary: Not water!

< I can use my magic to change the color to red -- but I don't do windows. >

In article <1255@uwmacc.UUCP>, oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) writes:
> In article <467@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
> >
> >Even more directly, water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, which are two
> >of the most common elements in the universe.  It takes a lot less energy
> >to make water than it does to cross interstellar space.
> 
>    I'd like to see some test results to back that statement up.
> -- 
>  - joel "vo" plutchak {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster

How 'bout a thought experiment?  Unless you want to carry a lot of
fissionables with you, there are all sorts of reasons to carry a really
hefty fusion reactor with you.  For one thing, it can be made to be a
simple, effective (slower than light) interstellar drive (accelerate
hydrogen in the opposite of the direction you want to accellerate in.)
(As Larry Niven pointed out in one of his Known Space stories, it also
makes a nifty weapon.  See also Joan D. Vinge's THE OUTCASTS OF HEAVEN
BELT.)

The fuel for a fusion reactor is lots of hydrogen (specifically,
deuterons, or hydrogen-2).  The way we get that now is electrolysis
of water.  It can be collected from the solar wind (I think), or from
Jupiter's atmosphere.

Oxygen?  We could spare a little from our own atomosphere.  If not, the
Moon is absolutely lousy with the stuff (one of the Apollo samples was
forty percent oxygen).  It's a waste gas, there's so much of it.

All of this stuff is readily available in our own solar system.  So is
water; *clean* water may be in short supply, but dirty water plus enough
energy yields chemically pure water (electrolysis again).  Not counting
the rings of Saturn; see Asimov's "The Martian Way", scaling down the
size of the particles in the rings drastically.

Not at all by the way:  Walter Tevis had read "The Martian Way" before
he wrote his novel, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.  Blame it on the screen-
writer of the novel with the same name, and a similar plot.
-- 
       -Paul S. R. Chisholm       The above opinions are my own,
       {pegasus,vax135}!lzwi!psc  not necessarily those of any
       {mtgzz,ihnp4}!lznv!psc     telecommunications company.
       "It must be fast, and it must be red, and it must have windows."