04-15-2021, 01:14 PM
By contrast there are any number of brown dwarfs - stellar objects in that not-quite-a-star-but-too-big-to-be-a-planet range - that have very rapid spins and upper-atmosphere temperatures that are relatively easy to design for. In their case it's essentially the same process as skimming fuel from gas giants. And the ones with the most rapid spins are pretty inexpensive in terms of delta-vee and energy input.
We used to think of 'fuel' in terms of hydrogen or methane to burn. In the OA context that would be pretty retro, but it's probably still worth skimming for deuterium fuel. Or if you just plain need a lot of matter for something and don't care much what you harvest, it doesn't matter.
We used to think of 'fuel' in terms of hydrogen or methane to burn. In the OA context that would be pretty retro, but it's probably still worth skimming for deuterium fuel. Or if you just plain need a lot of matter for something and don't care much what you harvest, it doesn't matter.