Circulus Station, Amsterdam Docks, Bay 12. Current resting place of the Ithaca and other freighter vessels.
Amsterdam Docks.
Sometimes I think I breathe more coolant than oxygen down here. With Dale still stuck on house arrest, we're grounded. At least it gives me time to inspect the new magnetic containment seals on the plasma manifold.
This place never sleeps.
#HardSF #SpaceEngineering #SciFi
Maya’s worried about moss. I’m worried about 1.2g shearing the intake valves. Soon, your “green zone” might not have the power to filter a single drop. How about spending less time making eyes at Dale and more time on the atmospheric scrubbers? Priorities, people.
#HardSF #DeepOrbit #SpaceRomance
Agri-Ops and Greywater Processing Facility on Zethera
Strategic Asset Log: Bio-Regen 🍄
Zethera's 1.2g is crushing our biomass. Agar-based algae reactors are settling too fast, and mycelium scaffolds can't support their own weight to filter greywater.
Without more synthetic spores, the "green" zone is a graveyard by mid-cycle. #HardSF #DeepOrbit
Ithaca Drive Specifications: Fuel-Containment Status Schematic
Engineering Log 092: Fusion Flux ⚛️
60/40 D-He3 mix. Neutron flux spiking 3%. If we don't source more Helium-3, the engine bell will be too brittle for the 1.2g insertion at Zethera. We’re burning the expensive stuff just to keep the hull from turning into glass.
#HardSF #DeepOrbit
Technical Log 084: Structural Integrity 🛠️
1.2g isn't just "heavy." It’s a 20% increase in structural fatigue on every load-bearing strut and a recalibration of every cooling pump.
Gravity doesn't care about heroics, only the stress-strain curve.
#HardSF #DeepOrbit #IthacaSystems
Monolith-Class freigther, The Ithaca repair invoice.
Dale Ransom? Don't get me started.
To the Interstellar Science Federation, he’s a tool. To his daughter, he’s free hugs and ice cream. To me, his engineer and business partner, he’s the guy who's never around when the invoices are due. 💰
#DeepOrbit #HardSF #SciFi #Amquerying
Maya Martin and Veronica Vega at the holograph table in the governor's antechamber on the exoplanet Zethera. #DeepOrbit # HardSF #SciFi
If you want to see what my characters are up to, here are their acccounts: @veronica-engineer.bsky.social and @maya-intel-zethera.bsky.social
I, or rather they will be adding content in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
#Amquerying #HardSF #SFF #SciFi #WritingCommunity
Freighters like the Ithaca aren't pretty, but they're built it to survive. My job is to make sure this crew doesn’t end up as a smear on a moon’s surface.
And trust me: the physics never matches the mission profile. 🚀🛠️
#IthacaLog #PilotLife #HardSF
This is the cover of The Worlds Within Magazine where my latest story, my 12th published one, appears.
My new #sciencefiction story "Who Speaks for Earth" was just published in The Worlds Within magazine: bit.ly/speaksforEarth It's about a Congressional hearing to investigate the aftermath of receiving an alien message. #SETI #astronomy #hardSF #space #technosignatures #aliens #scifi #sfbyscientists
I'm stupid giddy with excitement to finally see Project Hail Mary this weekend. That's all. Oh, and bringing plenty of tissues.
#HardSF
Title of my novel “The Three Reflectors of Consensual reality” superposed over a spacecraft flying past Jupiter.
Underway to a culmination that will speculate about how consciousness arises in the human brain (starting next week, these things need and take time):
jetse.substack.com/p/the-three-...
#spaceopera #sciencefiction #novel #hardSF #consciousness
Image of the Circulus Station Resident Card for Dale Ransom, Major (ret.) and Captain of the Ithaca.
How would the other characters describe your #HardSF MC? I’ll go first.
Meet Dale Ransom, Captain of the Ithaca. 🚀
To the Interstellar Science Federation, he’s a tool. To his daughter, he’s free hugs and ice cream. To his engineer, he’s the guy who owes her a ring. 💍
#WritingCommunity #AmQuering
The Ithaca, a Monolith-class freighter. Currently docked in Bay 12 on Circulus Station orbiting Mars.
The Ithaca in better times—before the solar storm and the 1.2 gravity of Zethera, a desert planet. Before Dale Ransom hung up his medals for a life of smuggling.
Now ankle-monitor free, can he erase his past and shore up his daughter's future?
#HardSF #DeepOrbit #AmQuerying #WritingCommunity
Just started reading the novella by @nessthenovelist.bsky.social "The Scourge Between Stars." The opening two paragraphs are killer—atmospheric and immediate.
Can't wait to see how the rest of this mission develops. 🚀
#BookSky #ReadingCommunity #SFF #HardSF #SciFi
L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest Honorable Mention, 4th Quarter 2025
Honored to share that my work received an Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s #WritersOfTheFuture Contest!
It’s a great boost as I continue into the trenches with DEEP ORBIT, my #HardSF technothriller.
#WOTF #AmQuerying #WritingCommunity #SciFi
#WritingCommunity #AmQuerying #WOTF
Screenshot of Captain Ransom's log file on the Ithaca, from the HardSF novel DEEP ORBIT: Zero Margin.
This one could use some love. The preceding post about metal got 10 x the views, and I’ll be darned if I knew why:
jetse.substack.com/p/the-three-...
#sciencefiction #novel #spaceopera #consciousness #AI #hardSF
As on Earth, #water on a space freighter with a six-man crew is precious. The Ithaca runs on a closed-loop system with a 98% recovery rate—the rest is lost to airlock purges and suit sublimation.
But once you’ve drank the whiskey, it’s gone.
#water #HardSF #WritingCommunity #WriteSky
The Andromeda Convergence,
Book Three of #TheMemoryGospel
A conductor who hears rules before instructions. A student who learns restraint too well. A civilization that forgets how to stop.
Paperback: a.co/d/055CrC0n
Kindle: a.co/d/06Y02PJn
#BookThree #HardSF
Depiction of an interstellar vessel passing in front of Jupiter.
The most ambitious SF novel of the year—exploring the depths of consciousness—continues apace:
jetse.substack.com/p/the-three-...
#hardSF #novel #sciencefiction #consciousness #audacious
Rendering of Zethera, a planet with temperatures of 30-34 Celsius and 1.2 gravity. #DeepOrbit #HardSF #TechnoThriller
Take it from me—you can’t pay debts wearing ankle monitor. What’s my alternative? A death march to the Outer Belt. I promised Maddy I’d come home from Zethera.
If the 1.2 gravity and a double-cross doesn’t kill me and my crew first.
Thin profits, even thinner air.
#HardSF #ZeroMargin #Snippet
Between a sabotaged ship, a double-crossing employer, and an old rival with a grudge, surviving the vacuum of space isn't just a gamble against physics: it means every tactical mistake ensures you and your crew won’t be returning home.
Martian + The Expanse
#AmQuerying #HardSF #Technothriller
When the ISF—a scientific organization excavating the first clues to mankind’s origins on a 1.2g world at the galaxy's edge—hires Ransom to recover an alien relic, it's a chance to wipe his debts and secure his ten-year-old daughter’s future. But recovering the prize is the easy part.
#SFF #HardSF
Dale Ransom is a man of systems, and right now, every system in his life is failing. A failed father and ex-pilot turned convicted smuggler, Ransom is on house arrest on a station orbiting Mars and a debt list longer than a shuttle’s flight manual.
#Technothriller #HardSF
By 2324, humanity has clawed its way to the stars.
When Dale Ransom—failed father and ex-pilot turned felon—gets an offer to reclaim his honor and clear his debts, he jumps at the chance.
But in space, a "clean slate" is usually just another way to die with your boots on. #HardSF #SFF
A macro close-up photograph of a metallic Whipple Shield plating (the protective bumper on a spacecraft). A hypervelocity impact from a 1mm piece of micro-debris has created a small, blackened penetration hole on the outer layer.
"I’m extending Whipple shield layers One and Two before the hull becomes Swiss cheese." 🛰️
In #HardSF, there are no Star Trek-like "energy shields", but layers of aluminum and Kevlar meant to break up high-velocity debris. The Ithaca's crew survival depends them. #DeepOrbit #WritingCommunity
Just got my ticket for Project Hail Mary.
I've been waiting for this.
(squee!) #hardSF heaven.
And the audio book is exceptional - Ray Porter always is.
Screenshot from a hard SyFy/techno thriller manuscript depicting a high-tension rescue in zero-g
Hit a wall for the MC who makes a desperate choice but I needed to get the physics right, so I spent the morning doing a deep dive on delta-v and orbital mechanics. Basically, the science ended up writing the dialogue for me. #AmEditing #AuthorLife #HardSF #WritingCommunity
For #HardSF fans and writers: you can calculate gravity on other planets using Earth as the basis: 9.8 m/s^2 x (Target G) = Local Gravity 🪐🧮
How do environmental factors like atmosphere density or temperature shape your #SpaceOpera or #Technothriller? 🌡️💨
#WorldBuilding
On a 1.2g exoplanet, every step costs 20% more energy than on Earth. 🥵Heart rate stays elevated. Your caloric burn skyrockets. 📈
If we colonize such a world, how much would McDonald's pay for the concessions?
#HardSF #SpaceExploration #Exoplanets 🚀 #amwriting
