Freefall

Deadliness of nuclear power supplies◊.

Sidenote, I was in a recent discussion with someone about nuclear power plants, and I was surprised to learn that they do not make a profit in the United States without heavy subsidy. This is, in part, due to how expensive it is to make it safe (and liability for the very rare case that it is not), but it is depressing to think that this is one less power source we can viably replace coal with.

That's a lot of x-rays. At least Sam knows that they are bad. And we get a glimpse of why fusion power isn't going to be the sort of thing we plug into our backyard outlet.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:25:04 AM

I was going to ask how Sam had any expectation of size, but I remembered the obvious - he'd naturally expect it to be something that the Savage Chicken can haul, so he had at least some notion.

I'm somewhat curious as to whether Sam actually has a concept of just how much radiation that would be and potentially be lethal, or if he's just basing the danger (in this case, probably rationally) on hearing the prefix "mega-".

Coal has subsidies too. And even if it didn't, the fact that dirty power has been around so long means that it has a near-monopoly that is very difficult to break. I guarantee you that if nuclear power was our only option (either because of laws or because of running out of everything else), they'd find a way to make it profitable. Even ignoring any technological advances.

The Sqid's simple genome probably means radiation poisoning would kill Sam even quicker than it would a human.

Oh, true, it's perfectly logical to think that Sam is potentially even more vulnerable to radiation (in fact, I think it was already established that part of Sam's environment suit's purpose is to make sure that it blocks ambient radiation levels that might be problematic on this world). I'm mostly just wondering if Sam's reaction is based on what he knows or based on what he can logically infer.

Enlightened self-interest.◊

I don't get it.◊ What is she doing/trying to prevent?

Putting away the tools she used to hook the reactor up to the ship, I believe.

I think she glued the connection box's access panel shut with a glue gun or something similar.

Edited by Medinoc on Oct 19th 2018 at 10:11:04 AM

Blow drying her hair, of course.

I'm willing to just go with Noodle Implements and say that she did something to make it so that you'd need technical knowledge to be able to start up the reactor. The specifics are probably not so important for our purposes so much as the general "prevent bad things from happening by accident."

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with the idea of a fusion reactor that anyone can start up by pressing a single button even if Sam isn't involved.

Even the Mr Fusion?

Especially Mr. Fusion. Having a time machine was bad enough when someone who did respect temporal causality had it. The whole Timey-Wimey Ball that developed once Marty hopped into the DeLorean in Back To The Future shows that making time travel easier was not a good thing, so yeah, Mr. Fusion in retrospect was a bad idea.

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Oct 19th 2018 at 12:08:57 PM

So, um, it’s like playing fetch, but we leave the stick where we throw it.◊

Good to see Sam fully realizing his level of technological knowledge about the ship.

I think the fact that it was more or less sessile when under his command shows that Sam completely understands the level of technical expertise he has.

Welll he had unsensibility enough to use the ejections and then duct tape the roof panels in place rather than seal them properly while still holding onto dreams of flying the ship. So I think having actually visited space and Florence's influence have rubbed off on him a bit.

Breaking the job down, with electronic crayons.◊

And damn, even in the future Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle can't get credit as individuals instead of as a writing team.

Given that this is not a dark comic, I don't think they're going to suffer a horrible death in space. That said, I am rather intrigued by all the science going into this. Even with fusion drives, you need a lot of fuel to get places quickly.

While I wouldn't put it past the comic to simply be filling in details rather than just a Hand Wave of how they get past, I'm wondering if this is presenting setting for the next plot point. If there's a stop out in space for refueling, there's the possibility of plot happening there.

Plot is always lurking where you least expect it.

Sam expands his larceny.◊

Sam, the sentence before your last question neatly answers said question.