Questions tagged [space-constructs]
For questions regarding artificial structures that exist in space.
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Advantages of locations in the solar system for a space station [closed]
In my story, a hostile alien force has arrived in our solar system and parked a station to keep us in line. They've mined the near-sun planets to build a Dyson Swarm, something they do fairly ...
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How to increase the structural integrity of comets (for the purpose of moving them)?
Suppose there is a comet of radius 500m made of mostly ice, with the rest being rock, dust, and other frozen gases. The comet is being hollowed out in order to use the water as reaction mass (giving ...
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Expanding a modular space-station for 100 years
The Mir, ISS, Tiangong, Skylab, the numerous Salyut-missions...Space-stations are one of the most impressive and interesting feats of modern engineering, which in my opinion, makes it even more tragic ...
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Possibility of solar powered space stations around a red dwarf
I have an earth-like world orbiting an M7 red dwarf on the outer edge of the habitable zone(0.0443AU). Since red dwarfs emit more infrared light than visible light, solar panels would probably not be ...
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Motivations for creating "brainstar" bioplanets [closed]
I define a "bioplanet" as any single organism that completely covers the surface of a planet. In my scenario, humans pass Kardashev Type I status and build a Matrioshka brain around the core ...
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Artificially-created diamond 'windows' for spacecraft
In the past I've entertained the notion of space stations and spaceships having window panes or transparent viewing surfaces made from laboratory-created diamonds, but a recent answer to a different ...
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How to make a Stanford torus start rotating?
The notion of using the so called Stanford torus to generate artificial gravity is well known, but once you build the mega-structure how do you make it start rotating? Do you rotate somehow from the ...
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Zero energy transfer between Earth and Moon with space elevators
I'm asking this out of curiosity, mostly as a response to Space elevator from Earth to Moon with multiple temporary anchors and some of the comments and answers there.
Suppose you're able to build ...
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Stopping Milkdromeda, for Aesthetic Reasons
Basically, there is a human civilization controlling the milky-way and an alien civilization controlling Andromeda. They are communicating and have decided, for some reason, that, though the ...
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Practicality of building a space station in the tail of a comet
In my novel, I want to feature a large (>5km) centrifuge space station that was built on/into a comet, and is in the comet’s tail whenever it passes close to the sun. It is home to many criminal ...
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Aeroponic farming in a gas giant
In the setting of my projects there is a gas giant (with a mass of about 3 jupiters) that migrated within the habitable zone, as such it's outer atmosphere would feature plenty of water wapor and have ...
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Is this a viable theoretical method of fast interplanetary space travel?
Let's say in the future humanity has traveled to all parts of the solar system, but they want to be able to travel between planets faster. In pursuit of this, they create massive space probes with ...
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dyson shell world, how do you create artificial gravity so people can stand on the inside of the shell?
one of the ideas I had is to make the Dyson shell a series of bands(made from impossible material with extreme tensile strength) and then spin these bands at different speeds, with the "land ...
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Minimising the environmental effects of my dyson brain
Many centuries from now, a race of advanced AI who now rule humanity, but who are aware that they themselves are leaderless, begin the construction of a huge dyson-sphere fuelled computer brain to ...
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What is the minimum size for an “open” space habitat?
In my science-fiction universe, rotating space habitats are widespread, and range a great deal in size. However, all fit into one of into 2 classes: “closed” habitats, which are too small to retain an ...
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How can I bring down a local space station network without destroying the station itself?
My characters are on a space station trying to bring in the bad guy. To do this, they need to bring down the local station network, so communications on the station itself are impossible. (External ...
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How long can a shattered Dyson Ring support life?
Now I recently had an idea for a setting and villain backstory and thought might as well get it vetted.
Once, there was a mighty Empire that had conquered its home system and converted most of the ...
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What happens at the hub/core of a rotating space station?
My setting is a standard rotating ring space station. I want some action to happen in the core, specifically for the hero to take down a "hypercom" system that is housed there. I'm trying to ...
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Could an object exist at the barycentre of two stars
Returning to the powerful clarkean civilisation in this question What compounds could be used to dye a gas giant the colour of a rainbow?
These same artistically inclined omnipotent beings have ...
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Can you destroy a dyson swarm?
The Swarm
Let's suppose we have a dyson swarm with an orbital trajectory analogous to the star-link constellation over earth, although only over a relatively small belt (lets say about 20 degrees from ...
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Planetesimal Habitation Grav-Train?
The Ring
Let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a small, sort-of-heavy moon, with little geological activity, orbiting a gas giant. Let's take Ganymede. It has around 0.12Gs of surface gravity. ...
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Would a rotating habitat work on the surface of a moon?
While we hear a lot about rotating habitats as a space structure, I happen to know there are a large number of small worlds and moons out there cursed with low gravity, which has a similar effect to ...
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How would a basic space station of this design work?
For my book, I need a simple, basic layout to work with for a space station. I am using a typical spinning cylindrical design, a core in the center, a number of levels surrounding the core (in my case ...
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Why would 1/5 of earthlings prefer to live in orbit rather than on the surface? [closed]
The Great Depression (2030 - 2050) wiped out 2/3 of humanity, buried nation states and forced survivors to take concepts like democracy, sustainability and the environment really seriously.
The ...
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How Can We Illuminate a Bishop Ring?
A Bishop ring is a space habitat, in my project about 100 km long and with huge walls 10 km high to keep the atmosphere in.
The ring rotates about once every 20 minutes to simulate 1 G, and is built ...
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Hot Jupiter L2 Station! Reasons to build, and challenges
I'm working on a somewhat* hard scifi story set in a solar system that contains a hot jupiter. Frankly building a large station in the shade (?) of the L2 point of the hot jupiter sounds metal, and I'...
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How to make a good landing pad for a start-up colony
Due to the expansion of humanity into the stars, landing pads have popped up on every planet with even a remote resemblance of a permanent human presence, whether they start with a dozen or a thousand ...
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Could ferrofluids give humans magnetic properties? (Part 2 of Magnetic Gravity Series)
In my previous question (Could magnetism work in place of gravity for large bases in space?), @JBH brought up that ferrofluids in the diet of people on these stations could keep them magnetically ...
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How can the neutron star factory make heavy elements?
My Primordial galactic empire is facing a huge deficit of heavy elements. So I decided to make a neutron-star factory to make heavy elements like gold and lead
See that purplish thing in the center ...
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What's the best way to construct a space-based sun shield large enough to put an entire city in shadow?
I've done some searching and found some interesting links (1. How many spaceships would it take to block the Sun from the daylight side of the Earth? and 2. https://www.quora.com/Does-the-...
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Would convection cycles happen in my water-filled space station?
Imagine a space station orbiting a star.
The station is not orbiting a planet.
The station has cylinder shape and is orienting its side to the sunlight.
The station is rotating just like any O'Neil ...
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Aside from fueling, how would a future space station generate revenue and provide value to both the stationers and visitors?
You have an independent space station, it's in a place that is convenient as a jump point for space ships, so it gets visited. What makes a station like that valuable other than the obvious fuel and R&...
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Is it more efficient to launch a spaceplane from a space elevator to a destination on the planet, or to simply fly the plane through the atmosphere? [closed]
Suppose you have a planet that needs to send and receive cargo from a space elevator at the equator. Due to various environmental factors, surface-based transportation is unviable so all cargo needs ...
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Generating gravity
how would I generate gravity in an orbital station without spinning in a really fast circle or making it as big as a planet, or would I have to cut my losses and just moon-base my idea (I'm trying not ...
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How might derelict space ships/stations be only partially salvageable?
My setting is a fantasy where the average space-trekker subsides on scrapping derelict ships from a distant golden age in the past to maintain their own, with only the corporate rich being able to ...
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What kind of construction material would an advanced intergalactic civilization use to build megastructures?
In my novel, an alien species whose name is temporarily “Alphas” is a Kardashev Type II Civilization and has an entire galaxy under their control. My novel focuses on the interaction between the ...
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Space elevator counterweight station keeping
I working on a story, and there is a space elevator. I know that moon and sun have a gravitational effect on bodies in orbit. And if a heavy asteroid was used for counterweight, wouldn't it require a ...
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Is it possible to make a self repairing Whipple-shield that doesn't loose atoms to the environment?
I am building a space station that is supposed to last until the heat death of the universe. This space-station has access to practically an infinite amount of electricity, but since it has no active ...
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Quantum supercomputers in orbit?
I have been wondering if it would be a good idea to exploit the natural coldness of space to create the conditions needed for quantum computation at a large scale.
The average temperature of space is ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
A planet with an early civilization (Middle age like) is doomed to be destroyed by an unstoppable event. So an advanced civilization decides to do a planetary evacuation to save the species and their ...
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What's the largest population we could sustain indefinitely on a distant space station?
Imagine that humans put a space station in orbit around something further than 0.5 AU from Earth. So: not Earth, not the Moon, none of our Lagrange points -- none of the "easy" spots.
The ...
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Would a hollowed out world be mechanically stable?
I am working on a universe where humanity has expanded across the stars. Humanity has access to a Dyson-Sphere-like technology level (1). The Capital is not the Earth anymore but Mercury. To build ...
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Why would a bio-mechanical Dyson sphere need to abduct and subsume an entire sentient species every 30-to-50 years?
THE SPHERE
Up in space, there is this massive Dyson sphere, with a radius only slightly smaller than the earth's moon. It's made up of a creepy fusion of organic matter and mechanical machinery and is ...
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Evacuating earth in favor of a off-world habitat: Just how many people can be saved?
In 2024, NASA detects a pair of planetoids, each the size of the earth's moon, careening towards our solar system. The good news is that they're set to enter earth's orbit without any collisions (how ...
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How would a sky with extreme kessler syndome look like?
A few decades ago the Third World War destroyed Earth. Space infrastructure was considered a priority target by both sides. Orbital space was in the years before the war was filled with skyhooks, ...
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How might a dragon escape from these advanced humans? [closed]
THE DRAGONS
When standing on all fours, a typical full-grown dragon is about 3 times as tall as a human. They are quadrupedal with four legs, opposable thumbs on the front legs, and two or four wings, ...
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Possible population levels in a Kardashev Type 2 Scale civilization
Acording to Futuretimeline a type 2 Kardashev society could be achieved around the year 3100 when science is advanced enough to allow the creation of a Dyson Sphere and due to its size it could house ...
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Controlling Air Temperature on a Futuristic Spacestation with Iron Age Technology
The Setting
World consists of humans with primitive technology living within an asteroid space station built by their technologically advanced ancestors. A lot of knowledge has been lost, obviously.
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Ocean tides on a Banks Orbital
Consider a Banks Orbital, a space station three million kilometers in diameter, rotating once per day for 1g artificial gravity, intermediate in size between a Bishop Ring and a Niven Ring: https://...
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What would happen to a star if most of its energy were reflected back at it?
For simplicity, lets use our Sun as the star.
Next, a dyson sphere is built around it (completely enclosed solid sphere, not a dyson swarm or network, etc.). Handwave how it's built, it's not ...
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