Are Orbital Rings feasible to construct in another star system?

In this universe, Earth had a couple orbital rings during the construction of the colony ships that were sent to Alpha Centauri. Humanity has achieved fusion power and efficient space flight (1g acceleration on ships).

For clarity, by orbital ring I mean a megastructure that has a greater circumference than the planet and orbits anywhere from 80km above to a geostationary orbit. They would have several tether systems which include elevators and trains.

Ideally, I would have maybe 3 around the main planet which is a binary planets system. 1 would rotate at such an angle that it can launch and recieve from the binary planet. The other ones might be on the stellar plane and maybe at a polar orbit. While this universe would be a fusion based society, I still think that atmospheric transportation would be costly. Perhaps the starship engines are banned from atmospheric use.

Additional information Humans left Sol around 2261 on a 182 year trip to the AC system. It was a colony fleet with 5 generation ships each with a population around 10,000 at the start of the trip. During the trip, some jobs were manufacturering of items needed for colonizing (mostly mining ships and shuttles). My initial thought was to have the ships orbit their respective worlds for between 50 to 100 years as they finish terraforming them and creating a planetary infrastructure. During this time orbital rings would have been constructed from harvested material nearby and in the outer reaches of each star (since at about 3 AU from each star is chaotic space I am putting an asteroid belt there). Both A and B stars have at least 1 habitable world and maybe 1 or 2 that are semihabitable. Around A is a subneptune(mini ice giant)although I am toying with it being a little bigger as I need some place to harvest vast amounts of hydrogen from. This planet will orbit in the outer reaches of the stable zone.

The basic question I am asking, is if a civilization is already fusion based space fairing, would they possess efficient space-to-ground capabilities in their ships that would render an orbital ring virtually useless?

I want to make sure I'm not ignoring any possibilities that come with fusion power and advances space flight. What do you think?

posted almost 5 years ago

user72655‭

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