Critical Mass
by Daniel Suarez · first published 2023
54% recommend38% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Hard near-future sci-fi about orbital stations and moon and asteroid mining, with detailed, realistic engineering and a sequel showing how the infrastructure is built. For readers of technical, science-grounded fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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If you're interested in exciting hard sci-fi about mining the asteroids and the moon, check out Daniel Suarez's compelling novel Delta-V and its recent sequel Critical Mass. Another profitable industry besides mining could be setting up nursing homes on the moon, where wealthy elderly folks could live fuller lives due to the reduced gravity. Yes, the idea of this only…
on “Starship will attempt a launch this weekend” ↗So, if this topic interests you, and you want to read a couple books related to it, I highly recommend Delta-V and then Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez. Both are sci-fi books, and deal with precisely this thing.
on “Blue Origin manufactured solar cell prototype from lunar regolith simulants” ↗I'm reading that book right now for the second time. It's even better than The Martian. It's kind of in the same spirit as Delta-V or Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez. Sci-fi with some of the details worked out.
on “Drug resistant bacteria found on ISS mutating to become functionally distinct” ↗I recently read "Delta-v" and the sequel "Critical Mass: A Novel" by Daniel Suarez. They're very much fiction but there is a certain amount of science underpinning the arguments and I enjoyed that aspect. And the author even states that he's trying to get…
on “Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience” ↗…concentrated in one spot, district heating - solar panels: super cheap, decentralized, and there are lots of opportunities like rooftops and carparks where we are wasting sunlight right now I just re-read Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez (great book if you like hard near-future sci-fi) and that has the idea of solar stations in geostationary orbit and beaming power to where it's needed with a phased-array microwave transmitter…
on “Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels” ↗I recently finished reading SciFis Delta-V and squeal Critical Mass by Daniel suarez. Loved this kind of hard scifi. in the second book he went into great details on how the first orbital station and complementary moon/asteroid mining platform was build and incrementally…
on “Short Film: "One Revolution per Minute"” ↗…those who haven't read the very good hard sci-fi near future book Delta-V by Daniel Suarez: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40859000-delta-v Though we only encounter microwave beaming in the sequel, Critical Mass I found the book a very good read, super realistic. 10/10 for realism/science/research and 8/10 for story. It's very optimistic. Nice to read with the war in Ukraine and progressive climate change not…
on “Maersk names first vessel of its large methanol-enabled fleet "Ane Maersk"” ↗If you liked The Martian and Project Hail Mary, two books I cannot recommend enough are Daniel Suarez' Delta-V and Critical Mass. Highly technical focused hard-sci-fi about asteroid mining and human dynamics in high-risk envrionments. I can't vouch for the absolute factual correctness, but it has an appendix listing the papers…
on “Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read” ↗Check out dV by Daniel Suarez (actually the sequel, Critical Mass, is about a Lunar Base). SPOILERS AHEAD ### ### ### To say it briefly, a base on the moon could solve the climate and energy crisises. Longer version. Think of Earth's gravity well.…
on “Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, has died” ↗It's not hard, it just takes a lot of energy. Enough cheap energy (that doesn't produce CO2) and some incentive and you could have CO2 slowly removed. Like in Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez.
on “Worst-case glacial lake flood scenarios in a transboundary Himalayan basin 2022” ↗Fiction: Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez, because I enjoyed Delta-V, Daemon & Freedom. Which reminds of Kill Decision, which I haven't read so far. Others: TBD
on “Ask HN: What are you looking forward to reading in 2023?” ↗I just got done reading Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez. The technology described and used in near future story of the book is based around this concept. Except in the book, they use it to power mass drivers to shoot cylinders of lunar regolith…
on “Electricity from Space: The 1970s DOE/NASA Solar Power Satellite Studies” ↗The book Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez is my only source, but, the efficiency of rectenna is discussed there, and particularly, though the efficiency of the transmission is somewhat low, the efficiency of solar panels in space…
on “Electricity from Space: The 1970s DOE/NASA Solar Power Satellite Studies” ↗It must be common due to its space lineage. Near future sci-fi books "Delta-V" and "Critical Mass" by Daniel Suarez also feature it!
on “Obscure islands I find interesting” ↗[Mild spoilers for _Critical Mass_ by Daniel Suarez below] > Servers outside any legal jurisdiction Others have weighed in on the accuracy of this, with a couple pointing out that the people are still on the ground. There's a thread…
on “Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship” ↗