Belt Technology

Overview

Belt technology in 2180 is advanced but not magical. Fusion drives enable interplanetary travel but don’t make it fast. Medical technology can regrow limbs but requires facilities most workers can’t access. The limiting factor is rarely what’s possible – it’s what’s available, affordable, and permitted.

Propulsion

Helium-3 fueled fusion drives are the standard. They’re efficient but not fast: transit times between major locations are measured in days to weeks. Practical sustained acceleration is 0.1-0.3G; higher burns are possible but fuel-expensive. Helium-3 is extracted from belt asteroids and imported from the outer planets.

Life Support

Keeping people alive in vacuum requires interlocking systems: CO2 scrubbing, oxygen generation from water electrolysis, closed-loop water recycling at over 95% recovery, waste heat management with excess radiated to space, and food from hydroponics, protein synthesis, and imported staples.

Mining Equipment

The tools of extraction include laser cutters for precision work and rock vaporization, shaping charges for mass extraction, electromagnetic mass drivers for ore transport, automated drones for survey and preliminary processing, and EVA suits with 8-12 hour operational capacity, radiation shielding, and maneuvering thrusters.

Communications

The belt’s relay network is centered on Ceres. Bandwidth is limited and prioritized. Light-lag to Earth is unavoidable – conversations are impossible in real time.

Medical Technology

The gap between what medicine can do and what belt workers receive is one of the belt’s defining injustices. Regenerative medicine can regrow limbs. Cancer treatment is effective. Prosthetics range from functional to excellent. Emergency care is good – when the facilities exist. But most of these capabilities require equipment and expertise concentrated on Ceres and Earth. Out on the platforms, a broken bone might be the most sophisticated case the clinic can handle.

What Technology Cannot Do

Physics imposes hard limits: travel time cannot be eliminated, real-time Earth communication is impossible, vacuum remains lethal without suits, and radiation exposure cannot be completely prevented. Politics imposes the rest: corporate control of infrastructure determines who benefits from the technology that exists.

Naming Conventions

Workers don’t use the alphanumeric designations that appear in corporate documentation. They call things what they are: “the driver” (mass driver), “cutters” (laser cutting equipment), “the recycler” (water reclamation). When they reference equipment quality, it’s by manufacturer: “a Shimizu cutter” means quality; “Consortium standard” means adequate.