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In my book, a group of scientific explorers want to put a base on the planet so what would I need to make that possible? The planet is a super-Earth but has lower gravity than Earth. The ship they use to enter the atmosphere is small. It can hold 6 people and the driver.

The goal isn't to live in a home-like building but to have a base of operations so they can live, explore and make scientific discoveries.

What is the best way to send resources without minimizing shuttle trips from surface to orbit?.

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    $\begingroup$ There is a good question here but I have become spoiled by reading spellchecked documents. Hitting "cuase" is like finding a hair in the guacamole. Erik there is a built in spellchecker on the WB stack! Edit this document, take the suggestions of the spellchecker, capitalize the start of sentences - all that stuff they taught you to do when writing communications intended for people other than yourself.--- hm I see Nycto took care of it. Give a man a fish, Nycto... $\endgroup$
    – Willk
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 17:44
  • $\begingroup$ How advanced is robotics in your universe? In classic Sci-Fi, explorers just land on a planet, and all kinds of things would unwind from there. In a more realistic future world, robots/drones would do a lot of preparations before first human arrives. $\endgroup$
    – Alexander
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 18:27
  • $\begingroup$ the robots would do preperations first such as scaning planets temp,atmosphere see if it has breatable air and are build for certian task.they can also be send to planets but just like real life its expensive and worthless if it crashes when it lands or goes offline so a little more advanced but it still has problems $\endgroup$
    – Erik Sanchez
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 18:29
  • $\begingroup$ @ErikSanchez worth remembering that remote-controlling stuff from orbit will be quite straightforward and responsive... remember that humans already remote control things in space from arbitrary places on the ground so the technology is already there. In the future when we've solved the problem of interstellar travel, remote controlling nearby drones like this would be child's play. $\endgroup$
    – Starfish Prime
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:19
  • $\begingroup$ Last sentence: " without using the ship to go back to the shuttle and back down to the planet" Should probably be: minimizing shuttle trips from surface to orbit?. $\endgroup$
    – Gault Drakkor
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:46

2 Answers 2

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Apollo style!

apollo wth chutes

http://www.earthtothemoon.com/ap_17_parachute.html

Just drop dumb drops. They don't even need to be drones. That worked for Apollo. Your re-entry drop vehicles will need heat shields because they will need to shed orbital velocity and they will need parachutes to fall nice and slow. Probably a locator beacon. Wait for nice weather.

You could drop a bunch of these ahead of time too, unless you are worried the natives will get to them first. Maybe put locks on the capsules. If the locals want to make swanky togas out of the striped parachutes that is ok.

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  • $\begingroup$ funny enough i have thought of this it was in the back of my head also there is no species that have gained human intelligence on this planet $\endgroup$
    – Erik Sanchez
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 18:00
  • $\begingroup$ Upgrade the chute for maneuvarability and give it the ability to try to home in on a radio beacon. This should keep most of your pre-dropped supplies closer together. $\endgroup$
    – Escaped Lunatic
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 13:04
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Basic information

Before you send and land humans on the planet, you need to get basic information about the environment. If somebody is staying on that planet, he will need

  • oxygen
  • food
  • water supply
  • suitable temperature
  • suitable atmospheric pressure
  • safety from local creatures, insects, bacteria, gases, radiation etc.

Probe

You need to send some probe to investigate the environment. This probe will have sensors, cameras, communication system. It will send you the necessary information. Based on this information, you can decide in a better way what is already available on the planet and what you need to take with.

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