Moon Mining Transport

 

A hopper transport for mining on the moons of Jupiter, rare minerals are excavated from underground and above ground sites, then transported to launch areas in preparation for their journeys off world for processing. Painted in Photoshop over some simple 3d boxes.

The Thunderbolt

 

This spaceship started as a sketch for Inktober 2017, and got promoted to a rough digital painting. As always, inspired by Star Wars, Babylon 5, and all the other spaceships I grew up with in the 80s and 90s.

Premium Edition Prints Have All Been Shipped

All Premium Edition Prints from the Inc Artbook Kickstarter have now been shipped, so if you bought the Premium Edition book, expect the print to arrive shortly.

Now all that's left is to ship are the two editions of the book, both of which are projected to arrive stateside end of January, and the secret stash, which I'll deliver once the books ship. I'll post more info when we have details such as which boat the books are on and when the books clear customs and get on the truck to the amazon warehouse. Thanks again to all who purchased a book, and have a great holiday season, we'll be in touch soon!

Megastructures 9 Gas Giant Refinery

A gas giant refinery is a series of structures that would be suspended in the atmosphere of any gas giant such as Jupiter or Saturn, their purpose would be to harvest large amount of hydrogen / helium or other gases from the planet to prepare the raw elements for transportation elsewhere.

The refineries would be Aerostats held afloat by a lifting gas, and continually process atmospheric gases to collect the useful isotopes. Orbital vehicles would perform round trip visits to the refinery aerostats to pick up and then deliver the final product gases to orbit or any other destinations like nearby moons. The refineries themselves could range from 20 to 100 stories tall, depending on materials used, lifting gas and planetary wind speed.

The collected gases would be used in three ways, as the lifting gases to keep the aerostats floating, to power the refinery process, and as the final product for transport.

This scheme would work better in gas giants with relatively gentle winds, as harsh winds and storms could potentially destabilize the structures. Floating higher in the atmospheres could reduce the wind turbulence, but also limits the amount and types of gas that could be collected.

The Aerostats would likely be unmanned, but could also have a small crew for repairing the ships and helping interface with the Orbital vehicles, or have a small contingent of robots to achieve the same tasks.

Premium Edition Prints And Shipping Update

First the good news, the premium edition prints are printed and ready to ship (see picture below). Rather than them coming physically with the premium edition book, they'll be shipped separately in sturdy corrugated cardboard boxes to ensure no damage, so expect them to start arriving in the coming week.

Now the bad news, we have been informed by our printer that the books will not arrive before Christmas. We had hoped for a Christmas release, but always in the back of our mind knew it may not work out due to the high volume of shipped goods that happens during the holiday time. And sure enough, we have been informed that the shipping company to move 1000 books from Asia to the US is running behind schedule, and the port that receives and processes the books before they are put on a truck for transport to the US warehouse are showing massive delays. Turns out a lot of people want their stuff shipped at the holiday time, and so the system is jammed. Anyways, we've been given an expected date of end of January, first week of February.

Sorry to anyone who wanted to give the book as a Christmas gift, and we hope you understand. Any questions, feel free to send them our way, but otherwise, thank you for your patience, you are still gonna get a high quality book in the really near future. Thanks again for all the support, can't wait to share the final book with you all!