On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 8:51 PM, Bill Rutherford <xxxxxx@comcast.net> wrote:

> My players are, in desperation, en route to an icy rock to try to obtain
> fuel.  The ship has fuel scoops and a refiner but it just sank in to me (but
> apparently has not to them, yet...) that scoops are for skimming.  Somehow I
> don't imagine a fuel scoop being something like a wood chipper where you
> feed stuff in one end and out comes sawdust - er, water...
>
> It would seem plausible that the players would set up a pre-fab shelter of
> some sort, sealed to the (frozen) ground, and would essentially mine water
> within it, feeding the fuel refiner via hose or the like.
>
> OK - how full of holes is this, and how should it *really* (in the context
> of the game) be done?

As it turns out, iceballs may be an excellent source of deuterium.

Sample size =1

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/10/water-comet-67p-earth-rosetta?CMP=ema_565

"Measurements from Rosetta’s Rosina instrument found that water on
comet 67P /Churyumov-Gerasimenko contains about three times more
deuterium – a heavy form of hydrogen – than water on Earth."

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan