Don't just mine it--Electrolyze it!

[Mister Dilsby]

In developing an SSTO floatplane for Laythe the following occured to me: we can drill for ore on land to make fuel and oxidant, but not in a planet's ocean. But it should actually be pretty easy to get H2 and O2 from water, by applying a current to the H2O and separating the gases. If there is a supply of carbon nearby (e.g. in the air, as CO2) then it would be possible to make any hydrocarbon.

Proposal as follows: an ISRU device that,

• only works when its extensible probe dips into a liquid surface AND there is atmosphere present
• requires electricity to operate--(lots of electricity--obviously, a bit more than the energy content of the product being made)
• makes fuel, fuel and ox, ox, or mono just as the present ISRU unit does

No rush, my SSSTO (single stage sea to orbit) won't need to refuel, but just an idea for sake of completeness  Next up--making fuel from Jool's atmosphere using only a radial intake and a cryogenic turbocompressor!

[Starhawk]

Your post makes me wonder if you've ever seen this image:

Happy landings!

[Whirligig Girl]

4 hours ago, Starhawk said:

Your post makes me wonder if you've ever seen this image:

Happy landings!

Someone ought to implement this proper as as a mod.

[RoverDude]

As the guy who made both the stock resource implementation, a modder who's made mods with similar levels of complexity, and the guy who's had to support both - I would agree that this is really something for mod-land not for stock (it's why I did stock as a framework with a very basic implementation).

 

The best bit... one could absolutely recreate that entire graph in stock.