Posts tagged space
My question is as follows - let's assume our objective function is to have as many humans as possible living outside the confines of the Earth as soon as possible. For this, we need to provide thos...
A sentient species of water-dwelling aliens achieve space-flight. Their living quarters contain water [no free gases]. They have evolved over millions of years to regulate their buoyancy at will...
Assuming I have the technical means of redirecting sunlight from a position in interplanetary space (placing the mirror[s] wherever necessary), how much havoc can I wreak on the planet Venus? Of sp...
So, me and the boys have decided to take a trip down to Earth for reasons that matter not be it science, leisure or fleeing persecution. It is no concern how we blend in but our spacecraft poses an...
I want to design a realistic interstellar spaceship that uses centrifugal force for only the crew quarters. But while looking up for designs I found the most common ones are the torus or ring desig...
My character is traveling aboard a spaceship through inter-galactic space (it has left the Milky Way). The ship is traveling at the speed of light or so and has been for the last six thousand years...
Inspired partially by this comment on one of my answers, I got to thinking on what the quickest way to communicate would be on an intergalactic scale. Say humans have colonised the galaxy, and use...
Strange! this question does not seem to be on site with a search (only what to wear). I am concerned about the psychological aspect of food production and eating. Clearly tube food is out and I thi...
I have an idea for a faster-than-light spacecraft that I would like to run by the expert minds in this community for a plausibility check. Basically the interstellar ship itself is of unspecified d...
How would a biological drop pod make it into the atmosphere and land safely? I have a race of aliens that use biological tools instead of technology. Their ships are living beings that can travel t...
Set in the not-so-distant future, interplanetary travels are the norm. Most spaceships are powered by fission reactors, and accidents do happen due to negligence or flaws in the system. It will pro...
Before anyone points the finger saying this is a tasteless joke, there are some actual good reasons to pick that specific planet for exploration among the giants in our solar system: Smallest mas...
How could astrophysical jets, emitting matter from black holes be used as energy sources by a space-faring nation? How could they be able to collect and use this form of energy?
Background I am trying to find a design for a cylindrical habitat that would allow the enclosed cylinder to radiate heat out to space as does the Earth without using mirrors and windows. Problem ...
I know the orbital period of my planet and the rotational period of my planet. Now how do I calculate the solar day? It would only be a small difference to be sure, but do remember that if we didn'...
I'm working on a fusion rocket concept for a hard science fiction setting. I'm envisioning laser catalyzed Proton-Boron reactors (low waste heat, aneutronic, 100% of their output being He4 Alpha pa...
I am not a native speaker, so please forgive my errors. Our space federation A is currently in the fiftieth year of a limited war with the alliance B, and the control of the K sector will...
Mankind has been always interested in making contact with another (extraterrestrial) civilization. We have launched the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes with plaques explaining where the Earth is located. ...
Say in the future, humanity has developed technology to the point that it allows them to traverse through other universe, each universe having something either drastically different or not so diffe...
Counter pressure spacesuits allow, in theory, a wearer to not be in an air tight space suit and work in a vacuum. What is the minimum such suit that could be used in a survival situation, on a shi...
Given current capabilities, is it possible for a missile launched from the surface of the Earth to impact the surface of the Moon? I would imagine the same "rocket" used send stuff to the ISS coul...
So we have a Super Earth of ten Earth masses, just on the threshold, and it has three Mars sized moons (so a mass ratio of 100/3, more than Saturn Vs 3 Earths). They go 40,000km, 100,000km, 250,000...
Humans have colonized the subsurface oceans of Europa - building large cities embedded in the icy crust, hanging beneath it, and resting on the rocky seafloor. These colonists mine metals for const...
In my book which is set in the near future (some hundreds years from today) the mankind has mastered interplanetary travel. Although the travel to let's say Pluto is possible, it still takes severa...
Inspired by this interesting question-- let's say that the universe was just really, really out to get a particular star, such as our sun. Is there a perfect cocktail where a mass significantly sma...
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...
Set in the not so distant future, we find a habitable planet very much like our own. The only downside is that it's around 500 years of travel with our current technological capabilities. We have...
If you had a device, similar to a Stargate, but that allowed seamless two way transfer, and that could be moved (You could essentially strap a rocket on it, and fuel it from Earth), you could just ...
It must be very dark and hot on the surface of Venus, but my humans want to change that and make a Venusian colony. The problem? The extremely thick atmosphere would make it problematic to say the ...
Set in the not so distant future, space travel becomes commonplace but is limited within the heliosphere. I'm thinking since it is fuel efficient and more economical to use gravity assist to slow d...
Let's say a few centuries in the future, we have captured an asteroid into orbit and built a space station out of its material. The station is a ring that encircles the equator in Low Earth Orbit, ...
I'm new to science-fiction and I'm intrigued by the consequences of "Plan B" in the popular movie Interstellar. "Plan B" means transporting a supposedly sustainable population to a habitable planet...
I'm looking for a more economical and efficient method of making steel for my project Death Star Unlimited, a mega infrastructure orbiting Mars with a mass of 500,000,000 metric ton give or take 1%...
Currently, chemical rockets have taken men to Earth orbit and the moon by combusting rocket fuel to generate thrust. Even if we develop more efficient rocket fuels and can create significantly la...
Background A 100 years in the future Mars has been colonized, new settlers and resources arrive from earth every 26 months (when the planetary orbit lines up best) by first taking the space elevat...
Is it theoretically possible to extract all ice and water from moons with subsurface oceans like Ganymede or Enceladus? What would the consequences of isostatic rebounding be if this was done on ...
What I'm looking at doing is a small game where you land on a planet, and the atmosphere is not survivable by a human being, but there is local life. Over the course of the game, terraforming has t...
So I've been thinking about the idea of a series that takes place on a small fleet of generation ships, traveling at around 10% of lightspeed to Proxima Centauri, which should take around half a ce...
At the moment it seems we have two different types of planet We have Rocky planets with a solid core that occupies most of the mass of the planet We have Gas Giants that contain a solid core but ...
In the middle of the night, while J. Random Human is sleeping, A. Hypersphere picks him hyper-up extremely carefully (so that none of his matter falls out in a direction he doesn't have), flips him...
In my current writing project, I'm working in a universe where mysterious alien beings travel not directly through space, but through planetary atmospheres via wormholes. These aliens shotgunned th...
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse The multiverse (or meta-universe) is a hypothetical set of various possible universes including the universe which we live in. Together, these u...
I am recalling the Space:1999 nuclear waste containment explosion; this has been criticized because such an explosion would have actually destroyed the moon. I am curious for events that could happ...
Assume I have a human colony on The Moon. A meteor fragment gets by the defense system and smashes into a portion of the dome, let's say the hole is 1 meter in diameter, it's big. Safety measures...
So say there was a rogue gas giant about the mass of Jupiter that, unfortunately, happened to be headed directly at Earth (or at least close enough to knock it into an orbit incompatible with life)...
My knowledge of Stirling engines is that they work via a heat difference and are extremely heavy when used on a larger scale. This makes the use of them on vehicles a strange choice when there are ...
Time is not a constant, Albert Einstein proved that much. Time dilation is a difference in the elapsed time measured by two clocks, either due to them having a velocity relative to each other, or b...
I need to create a race that should be utterly older than humanity (and as such, much more powerful). My idea is to have that race originate from a rock planemo - a rogue planet, orbiting the cente...
Consider a futuristic world where space travel and colonisation of the solar system's planets is an everyday reality. In space vessels, the airlocks are used quite often to execute people. It's fai...
Would it be possible to build a space elevator off Europa? (The space elevator would only be for the purpose of getting items out of Europa's gravity well relative to Jupiter. At that point, the...
