News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Like Star Captured by ESO. Parent comment

Re:First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Li... by Roboprog on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @05:37PM (#23921889)
Is it that hard to enrich isotopes enough to make a steam engine that runs on radium, thorium or uranium instead of coal?

If you know that radioactive isotopes exist, it sounds like steampunk, 1850s, level tech could build a power plant, but perhaps not a bomb.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Li... by macintux on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @05:40PM (#23921916)
I’m not qualified to answer, but there was a bit of discussion about the idea on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/57peek/can_y...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Li... by Roboprog on Thursday July 23, 2020 @03:26AM (#23924995)
Interesting.

I don’t think it’s that hard to build a vessel full of warm radioactive pebbles to boil water.

Sorting ore by chemical element, and then making a fluid / gas / solution of the fuel element to sort by isotope mass in a centrifuge may or may not be doable for “blacksmith” level technology, though. Hard to say.

[ Parent | on HN ]