Has Anyone Ever Modded Hydrogen Fuel Scoops?

[NeoMorph]

I remember seeing suggestions of adding fuel scoops some years back but never have come across anything. I'm talking of scooping fuel from Jool for use in nuclear fuelled rockets. Setting up a mining and storage facility at Jool would be a very good idea I would have thought?

So did they? I've searched but not found anything unfortunately?

[Archgeek]

HEH, there's something to add to Interstellar -- freaking Bussard ramjets! 

[NeoMorph]

42 minutes ago, Archgeek said:

HEH, there's something to add to Interstellar -- freaking Bussard ramjets! 

There are Bussard mods out there... here for instance -> http://mods.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/225798-bussard-fuel-scoop-system

What I'm talking about are something different. Flying low through the atmo to harvest gas. Does anyone remember this image from way back regarding resource mining?

[kBob]

I'd love to see this too.  Staple in some sci-fi and who knows hopefully someday more sci than fi.  Guess you saved me the trouble of looking for it as I got the urge for this just the other day.

One thing I've wondered about though is the loop, i.e. presumably a mine/platform in orbit of a gas giant is going to need a lot of maintenance and a fair amount of energy which it would presumable get from some of the hydrogen it mined so would the amount of H1, H2, H3 be able to pay off (not in game where of course it can but in real life) or even sustain such an operation?

Edit: I guess the lights would always be on.

Edited July 11, 2016 by kBob

[regex]

There have been several mods that have done this: Kethane (I seem to recall, anyway), Karbonite, KSPIE, and some smaller mods that never reached prominence.  The base game should support mining atmospheres at speed (if the code is anything like Karbonite, which I think it is).  All you would need to do is create a config for a part to collect the specific resource, create configs for the desired planets, and then go mine.

Edited July 11, 2016 by regex

[Brownhair2]

2 hours ago, regex said:

(if the code is anything like Karbonite, which I think it is).

IIRC it is actually based directly off of Karbonite

[NeoMorph]

Got to admit the reason I was looking for this was me re-reading "Live Free or Die" by John Ringo where mankind gets aliens hooked on maple syrup and uses the profits to fortify the solar system... and one of the things they do is build a gas mine heh... over in Wolf 359. Sounds bonkers but it's another good Ringo book for those who are into military SciFi. But as this is real SCIENCE fiction it throws in a bunch of real science too... but then it gets the "I wonder if I can do that in Kerbal Space Program" juices flowing heh... and then 48 hours pass and you wonder why you are hungry and thirsty and still you need to get that rocket build just right... grrr.

That's the one big problem with long distance commutes... having to haul your fuel and food all the way there and back... with no motorway service station in sight.

[FreeThinker]

On 10-7-2016 at 10:38 PM, Archgeek said:

HEH, there's something to add to Interstellar -- freaking Bussard ramjets! 

I concur, therefore I added parts to KSPIE to create a Bussard ramjet

It is effective in collecting solar dust from interstellar void, above atmosphere or directly from the star

Edited December 11, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Kerbital]

I got tired of mining so I modded (and recolored black) some solar panels to be space dust collectors and a modded ISRU to convert that to hydrogen. One thing I couldn't figure out hot to restrict the collection to space only. As it is, they collect while landed too.

[Fearless Son]

On 7/11/2016 at 2:51 AM, NeoMorph said:

Got to admit the reason I was looking for this was me re-reading "Live Free or Die" by John Ringo where mankind gets aliens hooked on maple syrup and uses the profits to fortify the solar system... and one of the things they do is build a gas mine heh... over in Wolf 359. Sounds bonkers but it's another good Ringo book for those who are into military SciFi. But as this is real SCIENCE fiction it throws in a bunch of real science too... but then it gets the "I wonder if I can do that in Kerbal Space Program" juices flowing heh... and then 48 hours pass and you wonder why you are hungry and thirsty and still you need to get that rocket build just right... grrr.

That's the one big problem with long distance commutes... having to haul your fuel and food all the way there and back... with no motorway service station in sight.

That reminds me of Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson.  A colony ship that is accelerated out-system via an orbital laser around Saturn then uses a hydrogen-based Orion-style drive to slow down once it arrives.  It makes an (unplanned) return journey after making new fuel at the far end and using that to accelerate back to Sol, but it's communication to turn back on the laser is received too late to slow it enough.  It has only a fraction of its fuel reserves remaining, and has to execute a series of aggressive high-speed Oberth maneuvers around the system's more massive bodies in order to slow down enough to safely detach a landing craft at survivable aerobreaking speeds on an Earth fly-by.  The entire process takes twelve years.

The ship's computer (because the crew have to be put in suspended animation on crash couches in order to survive deceleration) does a little aerobreaking around Jupiter while it is passing by, and opens the aeroscoops while doing so.  Partly because this increases the drag on the ship and helps shed speed, and partly because the ship can use some of the raw elements gathered from the scooping to refine a little more fuel.  Not much fuel, compared to the mass of the ship, but every little additional bit of delta-v it can eek out counts.  

Edited December 11, 2017 by Fearless Son
Wrong planet, oops

[Vanamonde]

Modding discussion moved to the modding subforum. 

[Corona688]

On 7/10/2016 at 3:24 PM, NeoMorph said:

There are Bussard mods out there... here for instance -> http://mods.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/225798-bussard-fuel-scoop-system

What I'm talking about are something different. Flying low through the atmo to harvest gas.

That's one of those "once we break the fusion barrier so energy is infinitely cheap" things.

Without that, the math doesn't really work out.

Not for harvesting purposes anyway.  For loitering, perhaps, though a hot-air balloon might also serve with far less complexity.

Edited December 12, 2017 by Corona688