Cool - I won't be around to see it. I don't expect to see affordable one bit per atom in my remaining lifetime even though it can be achieved in labs. Maybe some superbright AI will work its magic and make it happen sooner.
What can we make? (no Earth)
- Thread starter evilchumlee
- Start date
Just realised I got my calculations wrong for the strength required for the ring material - probably too much Christmas cheer (that is, wine) on my part, I expect.
The tensional stress σ in a rotating thin ring is given by σ = v²ρ, where ρ is the density of the ring material.
The centripetal acceleration due to the ring is given by a = v²/r, where r is the radius of the ring. Therefore, we can substitute for v² in the first equation, giving:
σ = arρ
Let's assume the required acceleration is one Earth standard gravity a = 9.81 m/s². Note that σ is directly proportional to r for a given a and ρ. That makes calculation simple. Where I went wrong was inputting the wrong numbers, leaving out factors of 1,000, due to alcohol and possibly incipient senility. I've also found better yield strength figures for the materials.
For an O'Neill cylinder of radius 4 km, the tensional stress would be 9.81 x 4,000 x ρ or 55 Mpa, 78 Mpa and 314 MPa for Kevlar, carbon fibre and steel - within their yield limits of 3.6 GPa, between 4.0 GPa and 7.0 GPa and between 0.2 GPa and 2.0 GPa. Only certain grades of steel would be suitable - something like AerMet alloy perhaps, but I'm neither a metallurgist nor a materials scientist.
For a Bishop ring of radius 1,000 km, the tensional stress would be 250 times greater at 14 GPa, 19.5 GPa and 53.5 GPa for Kevlar, carbon fibre and steel - well beyond the yield limit for those materials, but for carbon nanotube and graphene, a stress of about 15 Gpa would be well within their limit of between 50 and 60 Gpa.
For a Banks orbital of radius 1,650,000 km, the tensional stress would be 1,650 times that for a Bishop ring, so well outside the capability of even carbon nanotube or graphene to withstand. You're going to need something approaching Niven's scrith with the tensile strength of roughly the strong nuclear force.
So, my conclusion is O'Neill cylinders, no problem given the will; Bishop rings, doable eventually, perhaps; Banks orbitals, probably in the realm of science indistinguishable from magic.
These are just my rough back-of-envelope calculations - hopefully, correct this time.
The tensional stress σ in a rotating thin ring is given by σ = v²ρ, where ρ is the density of the ring material.
The centripetal acceleration due to the ring is given by a = v²/r, where r is the radius of the ring. Therefore, we can substitute for v² in the first equation, giving:
σ = arρ
Let's assume the required acceleration is one Earth standard gravity a = 9.81 m/s². Note that σ is directly proportional to r for a given a and ρ. That makes calculation simple. Where I went wrong was inputting the wrong numbers, leaving out factors of 1,000, due to alcohol and possibly incipient senility. I've also found better yield strength figures for the materials.
For an O'Neill cylinder of radius 4 km, the tensional stress would be 9.81 x 4,000 x ρ or 55 Mpa, 78 Mpa and 314 MPa for Kevlar, carbon fibre and steel - within their yield limits of 3.6 GPa, between 4.0 GPa and 7.0 GPa and between 0.2 GPa and 2.0 GPa. Only certain grades of steel would be suitable - something like AerMet alloy perhaps, but I'm neither a metallurgist nor a materials scientist.
For a Bishop ring of radius 1,000 km, the tensional stress would be 250 times greater at 14 GPa, 19.5 GPa and 53.5 GPa for Kevlar, carbon fibre and steel - well beyond the yield limit for those materials, but for carbon nanotube and graphene, a stress of about 15 Gpa would be well within their limit of between 50 and 60 Gpa.
For a Banks orbital of radius 1,650,000 km, the tensional stress would be 1,650 times that for a Bishop ring, so well outside the capability of even carbon nanotube or graphene to withstand. You're going to need something approaching Niven's scrith with the tensile strength of roughly the strong nuclear force.
So, my conclusion is O'Neill cylinders, no problem given the will; Bishop rings, doable eventually, perhaps; Banks orbitals, probably in the realm of science indistinguishable from magic.
These are just my rough back-of-envelope calculations - hopefully, correct this time.
For my concept of the "Earth-Sized" Banks Orbital, I was thinking that in a Star Trek type setting where you have the material science to make it happen.
(They have Bloody Neutronium, so I'm pretty sure some simple Neutronium Alloys would be good enough for the "Core Structure")
But having the inner Ring rotating in one direction via EM and/or Gravimetric Seperation of the Inner Ring layer from the fixed outter structure and rotating it in one direction while the outter layer would use advanced Gravity Plating network to make sure nothing flies off into space.
This way the "Banks Orbital" would be effectively Double-Sided and allow a total of 100x the Surface Area of Earth.
It would also function as the largest "Artificial Space Colony" made by the UFP & be parked at the Sun-Earth L3 point with a StarFleet Base in the dead center for protection.
There is a separate forum for Trek Tech. Star Trek science is mostly fantasy - sometimes it gets it correct, sometimes it doesn't. If the Federation had all the advanced tech it discovered in TOS then it would have been more like the Q by the time of TNG.
Here is a comparison of station designs
I’d like to see this revisited:
This could perhaps be scaled up—there is some scuttlebutt about New Armstrong and wider SuperHeavy cores…
I’d like to see this revisited:
This could perhaps be scaled up—there is some scuttlebutt about New Armstrong and wider SuperHeavy cores…
I literally posted that YT Video Link on the previous page.
Why do you capitalize so many random common nouns? Are you German? Lol.
Yes, indeed, "holding back the phlebotinum," as it were... but remaining unenhanced and biological centuries, millennia, and even eons from now is also a fantasy. By the time we're capable of astroscale engineering, there's no way we'll still need biological habitats. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline realized this by 1960, when they introduced the concept of the cyborg in that September's issue of Astronautics. Two thirds of a century later, most futurists and science fiction fans still haven't caught up and are still talking about terraformation and megastructures instead of pantropy:
The environment with which man is now concerned is that of space. Biologically, what are the changes necessary to allow man to live adequately in the space environment? Artificial atmospheres encapsulated in some sort of enclosure constitute only temporizing, and dangerous temporizing at that, since we place ourselves in the same position as a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land. The bubble all too easily bursts.
The biological problems which exist in space travel are many and varied. Long-term space voyages, involving flights not of days, months or years, but possibly of several thousand years, will eventually be hard realities, and resultant physiological and psychological conditions must be considered.
These are reviewed below. In some cases, we have proposed solutions which probably could be devised with presently available knowledge and techniques. Other solutions are projections into the future which by their very nature must resemble science fiction. To illustrate, there may be much more efficient ways of carrying out the functions of the respiratory system than by breathing, which becomes cumbersome in space. One proposed solution for the not too distant future is relatively simple: Don't breathe!
If man attempts partial adaptation to space conditions, instead of insisting on carrying his whole environment along with him, a number of new possibilities appear. One is then led to think about the incorporation of integral exogenous devices to bring about the biological changes which might be necessary in man's homeostatic mechanisms to allow him to live in space qua natura. The autonomic nervous system and endocrine glands cooperate in man to maintain the multiple balances required for his existence. They do this without conscious control, although they are amenable to such influence. Necessary readjustments of these automatic responses under extraterrestrial conditions require the aid of control theory, as well as extensive physiological knowledge.
Cyborg - Frees Man to Explore
What are some of the devices necessary for creating self-regulating man-machine systems? This self-regulation must function without the benefit of consciousness in order to cooperate with the body's own autonomous homeostatic controls. For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term "Cyborg." The Cyborg deliberately incorporates exogenous components extending the self-regulatory control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments.
If man in space, in addition to flying his vehicle, must continually be checking on things and making adjustments merely in order to keep himself alive, he becomes a slave to the machine. The purpose of the Cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which such robot-like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.
Because I FEEL LIKE IT!
This is the internet, not a formal paper for English Class.
But what's the rationale? It just looks odd...
There is no "Logical Rationale". It's just based on feeling on what I think is important and needs Capatilization.
Ja, so machen es die Deutschen.
I prefer to use bold for emphasis. It's a personal style choice if you don't have an editor on your back.
Besides cyborg enhancement, there's also the suggestion of genetically modifying humans to fit their environment rather than terraforming. Personally, I'd be up for neither, even though I do have several medical implants. The short story Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds comes to mind. Transhumanism of various sorts features in the Revelation Space canon and even Reynolds' imagination probably falls short. Probably need to read more Charles Stross...
Besides cyborg enhancement, there's also the suggestion of genetically modifying humans to fit their environment rather than terraforming. Personally, I'd be up for neither, even though I do have several medical implants. The short story Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds comes to mind. Transhumanism of various sorts features in the Revelation Space canon and even Reynolds' imagination probably falls short. Probably need to read more Charles Stross...
Yes, but even the most advanced genetic engineering has far more limited potential. A cyborg or noomorph could survive in lava or vacuum.
What's the difference?
Indeed!
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