Posts tagged space
If a spaceplane were to try to simulate the look of aerial flight in the vacuum, would it be difficult or easy for the pilot to manually simulate aerial maneuvers, using just a contemporary reactio...
I understand an interstellar dust cloud as "an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. Put differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interst...
This is my first question here so I would like to apologize if this is sloppy or in the wrong place or the like. I have searched and found nothing that answers the exact question I think, so though...
Could a perfect mirror/s be made to reflect one side of the Earth from the edge of the solar system and viewed with an optical or radio telescope that is in orbit? The targeting mirrors and telesc...
Could you build a ring around the earth, so that it would just sit in the sky? I'm not talking a geostationary orbit of rubble like the rings around Saturn, but a solid structure just high enough t...
So I'm currently working on a fan project to redesign Superman's home planet of Krypton. This new Krypton is 1.6x the size of Earth and orbits the red dwarf star known to us as LHS-2520, 27.1 ligh...
Our universe has 3 global spatial dimensions - that much I know. I am almost sure, based on an incredibly shoddy knowledge of physics, that there couldn't possibly be a 4th spatial dimension that w...
I'm writing a story and I was thinking about the ending in advance. I posted a question about how the population would be wiped out. I have developed from that and thought about the virus having no...
I'm designing a small two-person spaceship for use in battles in space. It is set around the year 2100. It would be around the size of a tank (approx. 50 tons). It would need to be fast and easy ...
Steampunk!! In a world without the fine electronics that we have today, would space travel be possible? ....I'm not averse to small amounts of magic in my steampunk worlds, but I'd like to keep i...
In this question, I asked about a universe with (amongst other things) 4 large spatial dimensions. In 3 dimensions, we have the familiar periodic table with its familiar arrangement of atoms in th...
I am still puzzled by the original The Planet of the Apes movie from the 70's. How come that sentient species invented weapons, but was unable to develop powered flight, or spacecraft. Thus, the qu...
There's a lot of talk on futurist blogs about mining asteroids for propellant and other resources for space travel, but I have something else in mind. Could a spaceship, starting out in geocentric...
I'm allowing for approximately 150 years of technological advancement. This is in Earth's future, so I want to be realistic based off of what we are capable of now and projections for declining res...
I understand it might happen in a weak gravitational field. If I have twins on Earth, but one of them suddenly gets transported to intergalactic medium (without any great mass nearby), then the tra...
I understand the Apollo 13 CM got down to 39°F after it was powered down following the explosion in the oxygen tank. Could the interior of the ISS be cooled (for more than 12 hours) to below 32°...
If your ship just got trapped inside the event horizon of an super massive black hole, could the ship "accelerate" back out with an alcubierre drive?
I'm trying to create a planet with a hot desert north and south pole but a cold equator. Is this possible? and if so how? And if it's heavily related to space how would night and day work on this p...
Would it be possible for a planet to naturally have a moon or large natural satellite at one of its Lagrange points? If so would it then also be able to have a second moon that would be orbiting t...
In my story people are traveling from somewhere beyond the opposite side of the galaxy to Earth. The distance traveled is approximately 66 million light-years. I would like the travelers to exper...
A space ship travels (almost) at the speed of light. When it nearly reaches its destination it starts decreasing the speed. What would be the most appropriate deceleration for human body in such co...
Suppose you have a 2+1 dimensional universe where the physics of that universe (we'll assume that the physics causes something similar to chemistry and that there is no gravity, but there is specia...
I know that someone has asked how chemistry would be in four dimensions but I was wondering what would chemistry be like in two dimensions? From what I understand, in two dimensions, particles, ins...
The ISS uses port and starboard to differentiate between the two sides of the station. (The Harmony node photographed after it was attached to its temporary location on the International Space St...
So, I've got an idea for galactic travel involving some fancy particle physics and the Higgs-field, but I've just discovered I don't know how teleporting really works. Or any of that kind of stuff,...
How can I protect a ringworld (which creates 1g artificial gravity and has an earth-like atmosphere) from the things that earth's magnetic field protects us? (using real-world physics)
Any story about an independent, self-owned tramp spaceship crew tends to implicitly or explicitly raise the question of how the crew got a spaceship, how it afforded it, and why it doesn't just sel...
I am writing a short story about an overworked planet whose civilization has achieved space elevators and orbital rings. The planet, which is earth-sized, has three complete orbital rings in stabl...
I've been looking at the altitude boosted SSTO designs from the 90s that were designed to be lifted to launch altitude by modified jetliners and thinking about bumblebees and wondering if bioships ...
I have a spaceship that can get to speeds very close to the speed of light. How can this ship measure how fast it is going near the speed of light? I would think one would measure how fast other ...
After seeing the film Oblivion I began wondering about what would happen if the Moon was fractured in such a way that large chunks of the Moon were ripped apart. Would the chunks of Moon stay in o...
So what I'm looking for is some plausible idea of two human planets, orbiting each other closely, that despite having regressed to a medieval homage, were capable in this old era of powering solar ...
In this answer https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/25219/50641 (to the attached question) one of their counter points was "oh, crows use tools, therefore, human advantage negated". That got ...
I've been puzzling over the logistics of orbital spaceports, and this has been the one sticking point I keep coming to: radiation control between docked, or even neighboring, ships. Mass limitation...
There have been many (many) questions around here about the how, why & even when will man kind become a multi planet society... this is not one of them. This question in fact goes the other wa...
Basics: There is a wormhole in a fixed position within a solar system. It is roughly 40 million miles from the orbit of the habitable planet, which kind of mimics Earth (roughly 12 month solar orbi...
Alright so I'm not really a physics person by any stretch so forgive me if I butcher some physics jargon on this post. So I'm making this hard sci-fi interstellar ship with a rotating habitat that...
During a space cold war, a ship from the ideological enemy is not allowed remain in orbit while some of their investigators visit a crash site. The reason why is narrative "“ to separate the char...
A common, matter-efficient, science-fiction habitat is a hollow cylinder or ring in space that is spun to simulate the pull of gravity on its interior surface. While for most purposes this artifici...
Background: In the early 2020s a magical life-extending "elixir" is created but is in short supply. However, a very reckless individual steals most of the US's supply and drinks a sufficient amount...
I'm writing a soft scifi novel that has its fair share "fi" but every now and then I feel it important to acknowledge some "sci." In this scenario, a spaceship is in orbit and about to land on E...
Space is two things: empty and (mostly) dark. This makes it really, really hard to hide in it, because to do anything in it, chances are, you'll be shining a big bright light through it. Even if ...
If a spaceplane like the Rockwell X-30 existed and was flying to a location in geostationary orbit, would it be substantially more efficient to take off from a runaway at the equator, or would it n...
Assume there's a spaceship in earth orbit that its crew of 24 want to get to Mars, the crew are all humans and possess all of modern day knowledge and equipment, is it possible for said ship to mak...
On a planet where it is Earth-like, the orbit around the sun is a bit longer than 1 Earth year, and the orbit is on 2/3 eccentricity, but where only the "2" part is inside the Goldilocks zone. In ...
My question stems from What would a space fighter look like? After reading through @dsollen's question can a human fighter pilot fully grasp 3 dimensional frictionless movement in space? I started...
I've created a fairly fleshed out, detailed FTL concept. Basically, you have a circular starship, with a ring of tungsten encircling that, held in place by an antigravity ring beneath it. The rim o...
What would the consequences be of a high number of solar systems being within close proximity to one another? I'm mainly interested in the consequences for life on multiple planets. When I say 'clo...
Is there any reason an elevator, moving from the central hub to the outer ring, would not function on a rotating wheel space station with artificial gravity? Any parameter of the radius or rotatio...
In the world I'm building, a nuclear war and subsequent repressive chaos have led all satellites to be destroyed by the powers that be, around 10 years from now. A few years later, a small spacecra...
