The Martian WayIsaac Asimov
The Martian Way
by Isaac Asimov · first published 1955
9mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2012–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Don't forget Asimov's The Martian Way. First published in November 1952 (!!!), the story is about how Earth refuses to export its water to Martian colonies who are using them as reaction mass on their spaceships. The Martians, in response,…
on “Hayabusa-2: Japan Spacecraft Touches Down on Asteroid” ↗…Earth that makes Mars colonization profitable from a Terrestrial perspective -- so at any time the flow of resources could be cut off, see the Asimov classic story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way The Muskian model that we're just going to send millions of people canned food makes no sense at all. Eric Drexler's molecular assembler program has foundered but we need something functionally equivalent,…
on “Synthetic Biology for Space Exploration” ↗You should read Isaac Asimov's "The Martian Way".
on “Propelling deep space flight with new fuel source, Momentus prepares for liftoff” ↗That (with the exception that they're taking the water to water-impoverished Mars, rather than Earth orbit or California) is basically the plot of The Martian Way by Asimov. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in real life, because Saturn's rings are more like diffuse snow flurries than mountain-sized ice chunks, as cool as that would be. And coupling your…
on “The discovery of lunar water has changed everything for human exploration” ↗> Where did the water come from? Good question! His story "The Martian Way" addresses this. I don't really want to spoil it from you, but basically: where you'd expect. > Surely they weren't storing it as H20 on the ship? Why not? It's stable, it's useful for other reasons,…
on “Propelling deep space flight with new fuel source, Momentus prepares for liftoff” ↗One thing with the early sci-fi is you will have to pretend you don’t know what we now know about the other planets. Asimov (The Martian Way I think got Saturn’s rings very wrong) and Heinlein (Mars and Venus are both depicted very wrongly and still a very entertaining story in Double Star) had a few stories and novellas.
on “Atomic Rocket” ↗Asimov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way. Not exactly what you asked for, but pretty close. Deals with bringing water to Earth. Edit: Added very brief description
on “A $20 Trillion Rock That Could Turn a Startup Into Earth’s Richest Company” ↗…can't be made on Earth and it's implausible you could bring anything back from Mars that couldn't be made much more cheaply here. You're left with the political situation of Asimov's short story The Martian Way, where a Mars colony is caught off from Earth and forced to become self-sufficient. Even if Earth was interested in subsidizing a Mars colony for the time being, the Martian colonists would want to…
on “NASA Is Worth Saving” ↗Nice, reminds me of Asimov's "The Martian Way".
on “Request for Startups: Water” ↗