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hermitShell • today at 12:18 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Another instance of 'Super Ice' or as named in the article 'Pykrete' in science fiction is in Neal Stephenson's Novel from 2015: Seveneves.

The substance is used in space for the construction of temporary habitats. I suppose this is plausible if you manage to find a large source of ice and bring it into a stable orbit. It won't melt into liquid, and perhaps the reinforcing fibers could help prevent sublimation.

A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome I was able to forgive the poor editing. It's attempting to be hard sci-fi, much of the novel is taken up by technical descriptions that could only appeal to an engineer-minded person.


Replies

NitpickLawyer • today at 12:58 PM

> A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome

While the 2nd half of the book is definitely still sci-fi territory, the first part is slowly getting into the plausible tech realm, 12 years after the book was written. We now have a much stronger space industry, and probably could match or exceed the payload to orbit in 2 years from the book (if everyone would work towards the same goal, which is still a bit of fantasy but hey...)

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8note • today at 2:39 PM

pykrete isnt a scifi material. its a ww2 idea the brits had for making an ice based aircraft carrier

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