Re: James, what do you want with a moonbase anyway?


"Wayne Throop" <throopw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1150306213@xxxxxxxxxxxx
:: IIRC there are speculative designs for colonies, intended to float in
:: Saturns atmosphere, with an effective gravity of 1G.

: Interesting concept, except Saturn's gravity is slightly less than 1 g
: at its equator. Even with Jupiter's gravity at more than 2 g, the
: problem is that to orbit a station at a distance where gravity was 1 g
: would mean the entire station would be falling at 1 g. To maintain
: orbit you would have to provide vertical thrust equal to 1 g--for an
: entire space station, continuously.

I'm not sure I follow your objection. Which part of "float in the
atmosphere" leads you to discuss "orbits"?

Further, it's trivial to "orbit" where "gravity is 1g", without providing
any "vertical thrust" at all. The international space station does it.
Well known technology. So putting a station there, even outside the
atmosphere (or rather, especially outside the atmosphere), is trivial.
Of course, such a station would be no better off than one orbiting earth
wrt in-station gravity, but then, per above, I'm not sure why "orbits"
came into it in the first place.

Or a space station floating in deep space, gravitywise.

A lighter-than-air station ... wow that is mind-boggling. The volume needed
to counteract the weight of the inhabitants, labs and habitat is huges, akin
to size of dirigible versus the cabin. You're right. I'm wrong.

That technology is definitely doable given sufficient time, effort,
resources and will.

Hmmm, a space dirigible ... I guess those balloons used by the Mars rovers
could be adapted for ... wow, that is a frelling cool idea.

: Imagine trying to levitate battleship 5 feet in the air.

OK, I'm imagining it. My mental picture is something like a dirigible
with lots of gun turrets. See, for example, "Castle in the Sky".
Not that those would be practical (I suspect the setting is actually
a low-G planetoid of some sort, given how deep crevaces don't fill in,
and other cues such as people surviving falls that would kill them on
earth (even though the apparent rate of fall is high), and then there's
the final shot of the tree at altitude, but I digress.)

For that matter, anybody remember the proposal to create whole arcologies
inside geodesic domes, and then loft them lock, stock, and many concrete
barrels, by heating the enclosed atmosphere to make them lighter than air?
Square-cube scaling and all. Another Buckminster Fullermeme, iirc.
Not that it'd be practical, but it's an interesting notion, with
interesting associated arithmetic.

But you'd needed sectioned off areas so you're not breathing in scalding hot
air, unless you mean like floating them in the Earth's upper atmosphere
where the temperature drops way below 50 degrees.

Xref lofting the top of that building inside a bobble at the end of
"The Peace War", another nifty idea. I wondered at the time, if you
spun such a bobble, would it wobble? (Of course, it wouldn't be easy
to spin a bobble, what with frictionlessness and all, but bear with
for a moment...) That is, what's the center of mass of a bobble? (see?
then you could spin it, seems to me), And if the com gets moved to the
geometric center, under some "bobbles have no hair" rule, and if the
virtualized innards keep the exact same orientation progression over
time for when they are reconstituted, how much tilt might one expect for
a city bobbled for a hundred years (ie, how much would earth's rotation
have changed from the "fossilized" orientation inside)?

You'd probably have to manipulate magnetic frequencies to spin a bobble akin
to the way you move magnets thru an electric field to cause a current or
some such in electromagnetism.

Ah well.

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

--- The Walrus and the Carpenter,
Lewis Carroll


Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw

-- Ken from Chicago


.

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