ARG! I’ve just realized that this whole concept of a “sounding cannon” is completely ridiculous in outer space. Now what would you use to survey asteroids before mining them? Radiation? Grrr.
Possible directions I could go… Mir’s father could become a main character… the whole story could be about a massive political secession from earth’s government(s) by those in extra-earth space. Or it could just be a travel story ala gulliver’s travels, from one freaky space station to the next… (I’m thinking space vampires here…)
Whatever the case, I have to describe the mining ships better. Everything needs more exposition, in my opinion. Then again, I probably also need more action.
To survey asteroids before mining them: from space, you’d probably use gravity (we likes dense metallllzz) prolly combined with some laser altimetry, esp. if you’re feeling like an excuse for SHINY LASER GUNS! which I think would go well with the Lesbian Space Ninjas. If you want to land on the asteroid, you can still use your sounding guns to do seismic surveys.
ooh… I’ll definitely work in shiny laser guns… maybe even chrome laser guns!!!! Of course, the’d just be wasted if they were only for mining surveys.
Yeah, chrome is sexy. FYI, the amount of power needed for an altimeter is nowhere near the amount of power needed for even the silliest of ray guns, so you may want to write some bribery scenes for the “altimeter”.
Dude, you can leave the details unexplained. You can call them sounding guns but just imply that they don’t use sound and if you tried to explain how they really work you’d have to kill us or something.
Here’s an idea. You know about mass spectroscopy? You fire a laser at the asteroids and essentially incinerate a small bit and then examine the light it emits with spectroscopy to determine it’s atomic composition.
Keep it up!
I’m using this spectroscopy thing, btw. I’m not sure why I’d be bribing the little altimeter. Did da poow widdle wazer got jeawous of the big shiny ones..?