Quote from: Skarg;993449One idea that comes to mind is if it is a covert mining operation that needs to covertly receive the water. The miners are posing/hiding as/in/under/near another planetary operation, and traffic in the system in monitored somewhat. So a free trader with discretion might be hired to bring in water from out of system while also bringing something else for some other purpose (personnel, tech). If they brought water from the same system, someone might observe them and it would spoil the cover story and/or violate some regulations.

That is an interesting twist.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;993346I'd see logistically transporting fresh water as being very difficult, and only a stop gap measure in any case. It world be more useful to bring over oxygen and hydrogen, as chemical components to start mass producing it, along with a plant colony to make it viable.

Is there a significant reason to bring in oxygen and hydrogen in separate cooled-to-low-temperature bottles rather than cart in a big lump of ice?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;993491Is there a significant reason to bring in oxygen and hydrogen in separate cooled-to-low-temperature bottles rather than cart in a big lump of ice?

Multi-purpose - you can use them as a fuel/oxygen supply. Bring plants too, and you have a self sustaining chemical system.

EDIT: Sorry, to add as a noteworthy point, frozen water occupies a much greater volume than frozen hydrogen or oxygen in any case.

Ok if the element on Sahara is valuable enough it can possibly work.

Say Sahara is at the end if a jump spur route that makes it accessible to free traders only by passing thru the Atlantis system.  Traders go to pick up the valuable ore (Byzanium, whatever) and have to pass thru the Atlantis system. Anyway. They drop off water,  get paid,  pick up ore,  get paid to deliver it to Atlantis,  fine.  Other freighters come to Atlantis which is along a main route and pick Up the ore when it reaches a large amount.  The buyers subsidize the free traders as it is cheaper to do that  and pick up the ore at Atlantis than go to Sahara.

Maybe the one planet that connects Atlantis and Sahara has little accessible water but a couple nice gas gaints that make fuel skimming easy.

Maybe Sahara has little water because a hot Jupiter swept most inner planets out if the system as it spiraled in.  Another gas giant spiraled in slowly and had its atmosphere abraded away by solar wind leaving a rocky core loaded with the byzanium ore.

As to why there may not be an Oort cloud maybe another large Jupiter type planet was thrown out of the system and as it spiraled away it sucked up. A lot of the Oort cloud. .or a rogue planet drifted thru the Oort cloud from. Another system long ago and pulled it all in.  Or a black hole ate the Oort cloud.

Sounds like most everyone agrees on no, not without changing the parameters. I always thought Ice Pirates made no sense on that level. But at least there are several other ideas to steal. Thanks!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;993491Is there a significant reason to bring in oxygen and hydrogen in separate cooled-to-low-temperature bottles rather than cart in a big lump of ice?

And Hydrogen is a pain in the ass to handle. Far better to bring in ice or water.

Quote from: estar;993837And Hydrogen is a pain in the ass to handle. Far better to bring in ice or water.

That would be my point, actually. Both hydrogen and oxygen have to be kept at crazy low temperatures to keep liquid (and I assume we're transporting this stuff as a liquid or solid, not gas). Space is generally cold (except the brief part travelling to planet Saharra, I guess), but ships with fusion plants generally aren't. Just seems more plausible to me to transport the thing as a big lump of ice (or water, with expansion room in case it freezes) in the cargo hold. I like Trippy's idea of bringing plants and just in general recycling the stuff as much as possible.

Quote from: estar;993837And Hydrogen is a pain in the ass to handle. Far better to bring in ice or water.

And its much easier to split water than join hydrogen and oxygen. And, so, the comet is 20% larger. The mass doesn't change and that's all that matters in space.

Quote from: Dumarest;993753Sounds like most everyone agrees on no, not without changing the parameters. I always thought Ice Pirates made no sense on that level. But at least there are several other ideas to steal. Thanks!

See my SF notes above. Its a matter of making the trip profitable. Buy the stuff they are mining and sell it. That should offset the costs.

Microbes.  You need to transport a particularly fragile cargo of microbes and the only way to do it is in their native water habitat.  They need the microbes on Sahara to jump start a viable ecology.

Quote from: Dumarest;993753Sounds like most everyone agrees on no, not without changing the parameters. I always thought Ice Pirates made no sense on that level. But at least there are several other ideas to steal. Thanks!

I think it would be a lovely idea in a stellar, rather than interstellar, sci fi rpg (one were the Oort cloud is "out there," rather than the next star system over). The idea that miners striking it rich by finding a buried vein of water instead of gold or something is a neat sci fi concept, so it'd be nice to be able to put it somewhere. It'd just take a lot of suspended disbelief for it to happen in the Traveller universe.

Quote from: Tod13;993840And its much easier to split water than join hydrogen and oxygen. And, so, the comet is 20% larger. The mass doesn't change and that's all that matters in space.

Joining hydrogen and oxygen is easy. Mix and add spark. You even get power out of the deal. There are upsides to the idea of transporting them separately. I just don't see them as superseding the need for near-0k cooling.

Quote from: estar;993837And Hydrogen is a pain in the ass to handle. Far better to bring in ice or water.

In traveller liquid hydrogen is an everyday commodity that is handled routinely.  Apparently they deal with it fairly easily.

Again the main issue here is ''How valuable is the ore from this planet? '' That and that alone really says how economically viable this setup would be.  If it's something insanely valuable and crazy rare then this set up works.

I think it probably depends on how the water is marketed.

Right now the bottled water industry on Earth is apparently worth more than the soda industry and virtually everyone buying water can just turn on their tap for it.

Anyone seen Ice Pirates?

Quote from: Voros;994323Anyone seen Ice Pirates?

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I forgot young Ron Perlman was in it!