Mining a Neutron star

It would be interesting if in the future technologies were introduced that permitted mining extreme bodies like neutron stars. Or a least, mining things like carbon planets or gas giants for diamonds, metallic hydrogen and suchlike. I doubt anyone would actually wish to mine neutronium. It's actually a liquid and a very poor material for armour despite it's persistent portrayal as an inpenetrable solid in Star Trek. And for one thing, that neutronium door in TNG would not only weigh many millions of tons and instantly sink to a planet's core, it would be extremely unstable and likely to spontaeously explode!
 
Didn't quite manage to join the mining. Turned out to be quite the task dropping into a super fast moving beacon when SC is out of the question 😄
But good times nonetheless. The place was pretty crazy, definitely worth a visit.

Here's some shots of the rings with some cmdrs flocking about.

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it would be extremely unstable and likely to spontaeously explode!
I think that's the reason that neutronium will never be mined. It needs to be under extreme gravitational force to hold together.

OTOH, not many people can claim to have been killed by the blast-wave of the Weak Nuclear Force.

Edit:
Incorrect, unfortunately. The decay is slow with a half-life of around ten minutes. It's a simple kinetic blast wave caused by neutrons having a massive kinetic energy.
neutrons have an internal kinetic energy density of 3×10^32 J/m^3
If those numbers are right, then 1.4 micro litres would have the same explosive power as the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact. (It would only start decaying when the blast wave was 50 ls out traveling at 0.1c.)
 
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If anyone's interested, here's a quick video of how fast the beacon was going once I dropped out of super cruise. Think this was my second attempt. After couple more tries I realised SC isn't an option. Closest I got was 3.0xMm, the safe disengage limit being 3.00MM. Probably close enough to throw rocks at him but the exclusion zone has no mercy.

*Theres a little bit of voice audio in the beginning. The voice belongs to Mr. Nutter
 
If anyone's interested, here's a quick video of how fast the beacon was going once I dropped out of super cruise. Think this was my second attempt. After couple more tries I realised SC isn't an option. Closest I got was 3.0xMm, the safe disengage limit being 3.00MM. Probably close enough to throw rocks at him but the exclusion zone has no mercy.

*Theres a little bit of voice audio in the beginning. The voice belongs to Mr. Nutter
Nice capture and images! I think this needs to be done from the start as the exclusion zone makes it impossible to catch up! Was great to have some company though!
 
Nice capture and images! I think this needs to be done from the start as the exclusion zone makes it impossible to catch up! Was great to have some company though!
I had similar problem with a moving mining ship. I'd drop in from SC on top of ship. But then it would be moving so fast I couldn't keep up.
 
I think this needs to be done from the start as the exclusion zone makes it impossible to catch up! Was great to have some company though!
Indeed! It actually got even trickier towards the end as the fast moving 'roids decimated my frame rates (think it was at 15 at worst) which produced some input lag and dropping into a manageable distance would've required perfect timing.

But hey, let me know if you ever need company for any kind of exploration shenanigans. 99% of the time I'm just out there by myself so a little change of pace is always welcomed.
 
"A neutron star is so dense, an ounce of it would weigh a million pounds!"

It'd be so dense that if you picked up a single fragment, if you actually got that far, your ship would become so heavy you'd be unable to jump anywhere. :)

Yet neutronium is still not as dense as Cranium. Just look around these forums if you’ve any doubt.
 
What was the reasoning behind your build, Nutter? It seems to me that a different ship or build could have had fewer power issues and a much higher max speed, but I'm much less experienced. :)
 
What was the reasoning behind your build, Nutter? It seems to me that a different ship or build could have had fewer power issues and a much higher max speed, but I'm much less experienced. :)
Just a quick and dirty build, core mining tools reduced my options, even then I had to ditch collector limpets. Also optimising build takes a lot of grind, which I can’t stomach
 
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