miners; their job is to harvest neutronium from the surface of a pulsar. Such a task stretches the capabilities of Coalition technology, and
operating these ships is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Coalition.
It is a common misconception that neutronium miners fly to a pulsar, rip neutronium off the surface, and fly away again. Some commentators even
talk of "landing" on a pulsar! Such a feat is impossible, at least at present. Like all miners, the Clogau actually performs a close flyby of the pulsar at
high speed, essentially falling past it in a hyperbolic trajectory. It therefore does not have to fight against the immense gravity of the pulsar since it is
in freefall - or very close to it - all the way.
What a mining ship does have to do is withstand the tidal forces of the pulsar. This is no small feat! The Clogau approaches within several
hundred kilometres of the pulsar's surface, at which distance the gravity gradient is in excess of 10,000 N/kg/m - meaning that the lower surface of
the ship is subjected to a gravity force millions of newtons per kilo higher than the upper surface.
Withstanding these kinds of forces is tremendously difficult. Like all neutronium miners, the Clogau is constructed with a tremendously strong
structure which is reinforced with very high power forcefields. Even this would be nowhere near enough to protect the ship if not for the four
tremendously powerful Agrav field generators which are mounted on the flanks.
As it whips by the pulsar the Clogau uses high power grappler fields to scoop neutronium from the area around the beam vents on the surface.
On a typical mission the ship might expect to scoop as much as 50 tons of neutronium which it stores in a pair of tanks in the upper centre of the hull.
Such missions are hard on personnel and equipment. The Clogau requires considerable repair and refit after each run, and a large scale rebuild after
every ten. Even with this high level of support the average lifespan of these ships is only fifty missions. Even so, by then one ship will have
harvested some 1.6 trillion credits worth of neutronium, far more than the cost of the ship and all support.
Bit of a work in progress, this one. It doesn't feel finished, but I'm not quite sure what it needs...
