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Assuming the ship has access to fusion power, a large volume of solar panels, and crude antimatter power generators (say maybe 1 gram a day per generator, or whatever is reasonable for technologica...
How much wattage would you need to accelerate a four petaton spaceship by 1g for a year? This should be about enough to reach near light speed, which is perfect for interstellar cruising, but I'm w...
Considering the rather hostile radiation environment on Europa, what communication and navigation systems might be used with near-future manned spacecraft? What would the ranges and features of th...
So for my story I want to have a binary planetary system, where both planets are about the size of earth and are habitable by human people. I'm also thinking that they will be tidally locked to eac...
Spaceships are a peculiar thing. We've got them in all forms, sizes & colours. They run on nuclear fusion, creating loads of power driving all sorts of shenanigans... but they still generate lo...
This question is partially a spinoff of some points that came up in another recent question at Worldbuilding about interstellar space travel. Runaway Truck Ramps I live in Colorado, and on the do...
I am interested in building a little world involving a very realistic asteroid pair, orbiting each other, and would really appreciate some help with numbers and science for this. I would like two l...
Let us assume we have a Kerr metric (rotating) black hole of 10 Sol-masses, spinning at 300 revs/s (as measured by a rest frame observer). What yield strength (assume that yield strength is limiti...
I'd like my (very well funded) group of scientists to conduct an important excavation, in-situ with fully breathable air and comfort. I realize a pipe down to the surface would require a pump and ...
Suppose the chemical reaction: $$3CO_2+2H_2\rightarrow 2H_2O+2O_2+3C$$ This reaction could be used to filter out $CO_2$ from the atmosphere, slowing down or reversing climate change. The solar syst...
This story takes place in our world around the year 2116. Global warming couldn't be avoided and a runnaway effect suddenlty started increasing temperatures much faster than experts predicted. Ov...
Mars has a couple of problems with regards to colonization such as lack of atmosphere, lack of magnetosphere, weak sunlight, and a few others. Of concern in this question is how to shield human col...
I was thinking about making up a visor like Batman has in the Arkham series, where he "analyzes" a sample and then he can set a filter on his visor for particles of that compound. Something like a...
In an effort to reduce the murder rate I want to greatly increase the chances of getting caught. To do so I invented a device that will record your last words (and potential the murderer's and your...
I'm currently working on a Sci-Fi setting for my friends to use in a campaign (my friend is GM but he's too lazy to come up with a setting so I offered to do it), I've already worked out the minor ...
I know that moon composition and atmosphere (if it exists) will influence how reflective a moon is, but I was hoping for a fairly exhaustive list of materials that moons are actually made of, how r...
And how much fuel would you need to carry? I'm trying to determine what kind of engine you'd need to accelerate a good-size spacecraft (thousands to millions of tons) at a constant 1g in a race acr...
When thinking about a potential answer to this question about preventing flight in a cyberpunk dystopia, I had an idea that I do no possess sufficient knowledge to prove/disprove. Thus you'll be t...
In DC's TV-series (and comics), Barry Allen is The Flash: a superhero powered by the speed-force. This speed-force allows him to move incredibly fast, can be transferred to others, and there also e...
A Kardashev Type III civilisation has need of a long-scale timepiece, and as such has arranged a series of planets around a black hole such that their orbital periods can be used to tell the time i...
Suppose there is a culture on earth that sees dead bodies as holy items and letting them decompose is a sin. I have seen many examples of mummies preserved so well that they almost look like their ...
In my universe, gravity varies with the inverse of the distance (instead of the inverse square of the distance). I already know that this means that all circular orbits around the same object will ...
Is it possible that subterranean caves do/have existed on Mars? We know of the past existence of water on Mars. Which region (if any) of Mars would we likely find/expect to find a cave system bel...
The exposition is that a civilization exists about 200 light years from earth and has been capable of radio communication for several thousands of years. They are not trying to hide from detection ...
Background I was pondering my answer to this question. I asked myself, "Why would I only do a 45-minute burn and then float for 3 months to get to Mars?". Then I answered, "Because you only have ...
My novel is set on a planet covered in 90% water with no moons. How would the lack of natural satellites effect the waves and wind?
The coldest place in the universe that we have observed is in the Boomerang Nebula. Similarly to a refrigerator, heat is carried away through a fluid, resulting in a space colder than the surroundi...
I'm exploring various kinds of potentially habitable planets as part of a universe-building exercise, and have recently delved into the fascinating concept of carbon-rich planets. My question is mu...
I've seen a couple questions before (like this one and this one) that ask about the habitability of a planet, with a key part of that being if the atmosphere is survivable. It seems like we should ...
I ask because I have a problem trying to find an appropriate launch window around that time or any point in the mid-1980s, and I need to reach Jupiter via Hohmann transfer so I can then use a serie...
It is 2057 and a manned mission to Europa has been comissioned in the prospect of further exploring the ecosystem and energy signatures of Europa. Unlike the implied unnmanned probe, this mission ...
Not a tank that could survive being shot with a 1 GJ railgun (pretty sure nothing can survive that), but a tank that can withstand the recoil of a 1 GJ railgun that's been mounted to it. Obviousl...
A livescience.com article claims that trees can reach a theoretical height of 400 to 426 feet (122 to 130m). This is due to the tree being unable to carry water up to the top at that certain point ...
In Lyman Stone's fantastic blog post about George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, Stone mentions that the seasonal cycle of Westeros is very unrealistic. Here's the truth: Medieva...
I have seen a few similar questions but none seem to take the density of a planet into account. I'm creating a planet on which several small civilisations develop. The planet needs to have a few bi...
A terrible virus has made most of the populations and government officials of the largest superpowers on Earth stark, raving mad, without depriving them of their intelligence. They have decided t...
I have two planets that are the exact same size and mass of Earth. They orbit each other, and have an orbital period of one day. How far apart are they? The planets both orbit a star the same as t...
I wrote a novel based on a human civilization that lives floating cities and dirigibles on a small, atmosphere-abundant super-Earth with a liquid water core (there's a smaller solid core under that...
This question discusses what you'd look at from space, but mostly focuses on how you could identify the weather. This question discusses what resources a colony would need, but doesn't discuss ho...
In our universe infinite energy is not possible, at least given the known laws of physics. But in another universe what would allow for energy to be in the same amount as space? But how large i...
I'd like to justify a lightning man in my world, and I have a theory that by some sort of magic, his cells in the dermis (middle layer of the skin - okay, for simplicity, don't count hair) are able...
This is an edit of a previous question. It has been edited so I can be more specific in my asking, as I'm still confused after looking at the answers to a similar question to my original. I have a...
Consider a civilization with the industrial age technologies. Oil and coal are rare (probably used up). All products produced by oil and coal are also nonexistent. The civilization has invented ele...
I know the innate contradiction present here: one cannot "prove" the supernatural exists, for a variety of reasons. But for the sake of argument I want you to consider this: A person is convinced...
Recently LIGO discovered gravitational waves caused by two black holes that were orbiting each other, and then collapsed into one black hole. A few months later, we find out that this actually happ...
In my fictional world I have selected all parameters to maximize the Hills Sphere of my planet. The planet has three times Earth's mass and it is located in 2 AU from its star that's 1.4 times more...
Could one (and how much) generate electricity by building a wall connecting: South Africa to Antarctica South America to Antarctica Northern Canada to Northern Greenland Northern Greenland to Rus...
I have been looking at various animals that have evolved some level of aerial capability, and I came across Kuehneosauridae. Reptiles which evolved gliding struts, attached down their sides, which ...
In the event that MOST of the world population were wiped out in a plague / apocalypse that did not directly destroy infrastructure, just killed the people, how long would infrastructure like the p...
Following on from this question: Can Cloud Nine be built? Let us assume we have constructed a Cloud Nine tensegrity sphere with a 2 kilometer diameter out of a durable material for use in Earth's ...
