Posts by JBH
In the near future we may find cargo ships fleeing space pirates! Given that... It's a small cargo ship carrying 10 metric tons of wheat (cargo volume, approximately 13 m3). Total volume: 100 m...
Edit: It has been suggested that my question is a duplicate of What could humans do to render the earth uninhabitable?. That question only asks what would be necessary to make human life impossibl...
I was having fun reading this article about making cement on the moon when I asked myself (and now you), is it possible to make a suitably high-compressive-strength cement on Mars? Since concrete...
World Rules: Travelers are able to move at the speed of light without disruption of their lives. Time passes "normally" for them. They think, breathe, love, cry, and steer the ship as if they w...
Backstory You won't believe it, but I'll tell you anyway. I'm a Level 61 wizard. If you think about it, wands aren't all that hard to use. Point, invoke, joyfully watch your enemy burn in the f...
Storm fronts — especially surprise storm fronts — are a popular Sci-Fi trope. Ion storms and radiation storms and neutronic storms and they invariably look 2D, like ribbons in space. But then I r...
Based on a previous question asking about mechanical computing (Babbage engines, etc.) I wondered how a steampunk story could present the concept of a modern computer monitor in a steam-driven mech...
I spent my life, my fortune, my family connections... I sold my children into slavery and my soul to Ilnarren... Wanted posters hang from from the Abyss of Shrondir to the expanse of d'o (most bea...
A light-year distant from Sol saw the collision of a massive space-born battle fleet against an awe-inspiring dreadnought. At one point in the battle, the flotilla fired rail-guns with 100 metric ...
I would like to include a world in a story that is located on the upper plane (or bottom, doesn't matter, but call it upper for the sake of reference) of the galaxy. If you think of the galaxy as ...
I'm asking this question as a reference for use in worldbuilding when developing world size, atmospheric content, or alien optometric abilities (aka, vision). While I'm specifically asking two q...
Simplistically, a neutron star is a celestial body with enormous mass crushed into a small volume. That crushing force is gravity and the result, one might think, is atoms packed much more closely...
Inspired by: How much electromagnetic transmission noise does Earth have to emit to be noticeable? Premise: Assume that the infamous Wolf 359 star system has one habitable planet and a second, hab...
I'm developing fictional technology for "perfect recycling." A large plant that takes in water and every cubic millimeter of waste humanity can produce (in the local area, of course). It disinteg...
I've been doing a little research (including reading Howard Curtis' Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students) because I want to build a solar system with a planet that has a true three-dimensiona...
Is it unreasonable to suspend one's disbelief that an asteroid belt naturally formed with enough mass distributed through the belt to justify the formation of a belt-wide atmosphere given the follo...
Inspired by a brief comment converstaion found here. I would like to investigate the design and development of an alien species whose technological development did not include an understanding of ...
Building on this question: Settings formed by Uncontrolled Terraforming of Venus and Mars via Portals My government, the Great Council of Duhurang1 has authorized the Minister of Astronomic Scienc...
My new superhuman, Gravero!, has just entered combat. He's a new superhero with a lot going for him! He's resplendant in his dashing tights, his cape flows in exactly the right direction when he ...
In my story interstellar travel is common, but nothing's perfect, and a mining ship returning from a deep-space run (you'd be surprised what's out there) just discovered that something is very, ver...
My empire's flagship, the Persecutor class UJBHE1 Abhorrent, rides into the home system of my greatest enemy, Baron Obsequious, levels its Death Ray2 at his beloved home, and pulls the trigger.3 B...
While once living in Texas, my family and I had the privilege of watching a shuttle re-entry. It was breath-taking. I kid you not, it was like watching the finger of god drawing a line of fire th...
I would like to better understand intragalactic ship design (aka, "spaceships"). It's travelling at a barely tolerable 0.05c (86 years to Alpha Centauri). It happens to impact with a baseball (14...
RIDGEFIELD PARK, NJ "“ April 2, 2019 "“ Samsung Electronics America, Inc. announced that the new, award-winning Galaxy S11 and Galaxy S11+, which have been recognized by smartphone reviewers worldw...
This question about time dilation got me thinking. The speed of an electron through copper is a whole heckofa lot slower than the speed of light, but if I understand the limits of relativity corre...