The Colonist - Part II: Landing

This is the second part of a series of questions I'll ask about a self-sustaining colonization ship. I'll keep editing this post as things unfold.

If you can, check out the other questions of this series for a bigger picture:

Part I - Construction

Some Context

Each Colonist journey is a one way trip to a new world. There aren't resources or space enough for another 20~200 year trip back, so the people in the ship (about 100 individuals) must be equipped with whatever they might need to start a new civilization from the ground up.

The original idea is that these giant vessels are not meant to come back home, they're meant to BE home. And this is the main point of this question, since every Colonist must take the passengers to the new world AND serve as a first base of operations to aid them in the creation of a new colony.

Once the Colonist reaches its destination, it will enter the planet and make a landing - after a geological survey to find the best landing place possible, they set the coordinates and start to descend into their new home.

However, this ship is massive and I have doubts about how feasible it is for this landing to take place.

The Question

Taking into consideration the massive ship discussed in Part I, I'd like to know:

Is it possible for this ship to safely make this landing?

Things to consider for this question:

• The destination planet is exactly like Earth except unpopulated;
• The geological survey is but a BS excuse. I'm basically saying they'll ALWAYS find the perfect landing zone;
• Safely means no casualties among the crew - but the ship and the cargo can be damaged during the descent;
• The world can't be damaged enough to become uninhabitable (this is here because I've been told that a large enough body might actually burn the world's atmosphere - which is something that a terraforming crew obviously does not want);

posted almost 6 years ago

Magus‭

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