Posts tagged space
This is an idea for a space station on the surface of Eris (but could work on other celestial bodies), using rotating rings to simulate gravity. The idea is that these rings would sit horizontally ...
If a spacecraft is in low earth orbit ~400 Kilometres above earth. How big does it need to be visible from earth with the human eye without telescopes, with enough of its details to clearly distin...
In a setting with (mostly) near future technology what material would a top end naval spaceships hull be made out of? The hull must follow the following requirements: Able to withstand the strai...
In settings with space travel we often see stories that rely on ships encountering each other, such as space piracy (which means you need to know where to wait in ambush), or distress signals that ...
Hopefully this isn't a duplicate; I wasn't able to find another question which addressed this, at any rate. Let's say I have a generational spaceship going off to another solar system to establish...
Scientists recently discovered a propellantless drive capable of completely negating gravity with low energy inputs! Huzzah! Sadly the Earth is going to be destroyed soon by a rogue handwave. Looki...
Would a rocket or Bussard ramjet powered by monopole induced proton decay (Callan-Rubakov mechanism) be a feasible method for near-light interstellar flight? There are such drives in the Orion's Ar...
Extremely advanced civilization on a computerized space station orbiting a desolate uninhabited planet. There are no other known civilizations within this station's sphere of observation. Not many ...
Somewhat in relation to this question - What could restrain post-singularity societies from spreading across the Galaxy? I'm assuming not all star systems move at the same velocity in relation to ...
I have a colonized asteroid that is roughly spherical and has been hollowed out. To create artificial gravity I spin the asteroid creating a strip of 1g gravity around the "equator". What would hap...
Inspired by this question: Consider a trinary star system, in which the three stars are arranged in an xy plane and all revolving the same direction, equidistant from each other. The inward pull...
I'm trying to create a system where a gas giant has two moons in binary orbit with each other. I'm trying to get that James Cameron look with the gas giant on the horizon, but also have a equally s...
I have recently been interested in Antarctic bases. They seem really interesting to me. I don't know all that much about them. One that came to my mind is SANAE IV. Some bases can support more th...
Assume a universe depressingly like ours, in which special relativity holds. No hyperspace, no warp drive, no wormholes, and even the limited get-out clauses offered by real world physics either do...
Imagine that we one day invent an ansible, capable of near-instantaneous FTL communication, but we can not transport physical matter any faster than light. Imagine also that we have gotten to the ...
What role do satellites, communication towers, GPS, etc, play in the operation, and specifically the landing, of a space shuttle? If those and any other human-made things suddenly disappeared, cou...
The problem is the following: let's say we have a miniaturized satellite*, X; we know its position, velocity, acceleration, the forces applied at any given moment; we also know its mass, its d...
Follow up question to: How long time would it take for a space hulk to lose orbit? Let's assume that the spaceship crashes into the planet, I used the Impact Calculator to get some result of the c...
This creature was void-born in the farthest depths of time in this Universe. Drawing its energy from electromagnetic radiation, and sealed against the vacuum of space, this drifting creature establ...
Most current planets, and any inhabitants living on them, are ultimately the product of long-dead supernovas that exploded and sent matter across the universe, where it eventually got caught with o...
Larry Niven defines a macro-life civilisation as one that lives in interstellar spacecraft, independent of planetary resources and culture, full time and by implication keeps moving. This could mea...
The civilization in question here has colonized the solar system. They have established settlements on most solid planets. Of course, a space-faring people generates plenty of trash, but they have ...
I don't like the direction where mankind is going. We spend more resources to build tools which allow us to watch cat videos than on curing cancer. One day I decided to say enough, and leave this ...
I'm making a hard-ish sci-fi universe where humans colonized nearby star systems and found not one but two civilizations in Alpha Centauri, each at home on a planet orbiting one of the two main sta...
Let's not debate whether is there any friction while traveling inside vacuum space and assume all ships can brave a perfect storm brewing inside the giant molecular cloud. OK let's get down to busi...
In one of the most empty regions of space between the galactic superclusters there is a giant space bubble, with a radius of about 1,000,000 light years. Most of this bubble is one molecule thick ...
Your large spaceship is damaged beyond repair. You manage to get it close enough to a planet so that you can release emergency shuttle craft. You have very little control over the ship and won't be...
READ EDITS I am writing a passage about the main character of my book travelling up a space elevator to the spaceport that rests in geostationary orbit above Mars. This means that the elevator wou...
A great way to introduce advanced technology to a story is to have it be of extraterrestrial origin. E.g. have a spaceship crash on earth, or, like I was planning to, put a derelict spaceport on th...
An answer to the following question mentions a free online calculator for long-distance space travel. Software to ease my interstellar travel calculations I'm looking for a 3d simulator that accu...
In my stellar empire, the sapient life of the home world are arachnids. Due to an oxygen-heavy world with certain evolutionary characteristics, spider-like beings developed intelligence and formed ...
I recently asked about racing in space (The new Space Race - Racing!) and as expected while there were a few options they were mostly pretty limited. However 2012rcampion did suggest that sports i...
I'm no rocket scientist, but I've been reading up on some basic concepts of rocket science (including some great talks here). As far as I've gleaned, there's two extremes of rocket thrusts: high sp...
In 1869 a giant space gun was built, with the intent of firing a projectile at the Moon, just to prove that they can do it. Of course, the ludicrous idea to put people inside it was never even take...
A side shot from my series on a computer-less future; see here, here, and here. Project Rho defines a torch-drive as an engine with both high acceleration and high exhaust velocity. A torch-ship i...
Okay, i need help here. I'm sure this question has been asked before and if it has, please refer me to it. But a story I have been working on for a while now revolves around the adventures of a col...
We have escaped the galactic government, and now our greatest endeavour yet, life in space. How will these gargantuan space entities eat and survive in space? The whale or other in question is th...
Take-off in a craft with rockets allows a gentle acceleration that doesn't kill the occupants. Given that the Moon has no atmosphere: Is there any current technology that would allow safe takeoff ...
Humanity builds a spaceship to leave Earth. For eight billion people or so, that vessel has to be gigantic. Using the metal from Earth's core for the construction and the biosphere to create a habi...
Introduction See background information here. 1000 years after darkness fell on Old Earth, humanity is scattered throughout the solar system. Apart from the Harmonious Republic of Mars, there are...
I am creating a binary star system with a likeness to the Alpha Centauri system with an outer orbiting planet like Proxima Centauri. On an earth similar planet what would the temperature variation ...
A large (compared to Earth life) species of creatures live in space. They gain energy from interstellar dust and starlight. How they do this is a separate question so not relevant here. However the...
I am a post-human adapted for permanent life in vacuum and micro-gravity. How might my physiology and biochemistry overcome the following challenges? Please note I have a strong cultural aversion ...
As a linguist aboard a terraforming mission, you arrive at a new planet. The planet, orbiting a G2V star, has copious amounts of wildlife and some sentient lifeforms. However, you, interpreting an ...
What I want to know is if an asteroid about 15 KM in diameter and roughly double that in length, spinning at a significant speed, could go undiscovered until a crew of an asteroid mining ship happe...
In its heyday Earth was a great interplanetary trading post on account of its low gravity moon which was used as a warehouse for all kinds of goods. The Moon was covered almost entirely in large w...
Background A McKendree cylinder is a rotating cylindrical space habitat comparable to the more well known O'Neill model. It was proposed by NASA engineer Thomas McKendree in 2000 as an update of O...
The question of whether or not humans could reach space without various resources has been exhaustively researched on this site, but one question has not been touched- what about the social and pol...
I am a post-human adapted for permanent life in vacuum and micro-gravity. How might my physiology and biochemistry overcome the following challenges? Please note I have a strong cultural aversion ...
I'm working on a sci fi story which heavily integrates themes of varying alien configurations and how they shape society, culture and language. As part of this theme, I want to have some of the hum...
