Sections sounds like a logistical nightmare in my opinion. My "idea" of a future material would be a concrete like thickness anyway so "pasting" a runway would be similar no?
this is just a way so its conveniently easy to put together. like orbiters current runways are assembled in sections. so this is purely an excercise in games environment construction, which is typically all repeating sections and tiles put together.
Well, this ship is clearly supposed to be built in a time when technology has come to a point when sacrificing some performance for the sake of convenience is acceptable. From an engineering perspective the deployable centrifuge module would be a nightmare to design and it would introduce a weak spot, in the structure, add unnecessary mass and is not really required for a trip 1 - 2 weeks long. Humans can easily spend 2 weeks in zero G without serious health problems. But the centrifuge is still there because it is more convenient to have gravity for whole duration of the trip. Most passengers also would prefer ship which is more convenient even if it means few days longer trip.
Ah, well ya know i wasn't the one to say 'a week to mars' but perhaps thats dooable at the closest point and i came up with some rough numbers for doing that.
if thats as fast as it can get there at the closest point then its going to take 4 times that when its in opposition, probably more.. my calculation was very simple and 4 weeks simply assumes both planets are static and that you fly through the sun
So lets say you're going on a long off peak holiday to mars, or for some reason you just have to go at around the worst possible time. so say you have six weeks or more transit there, six weeks back and however long you're there, you're potentially spending a long time in space and in the reduce gravity of mars.
Personally i think we're going to have to come up with some more imaginative solutions than pure hardware and solving engineering problems. consider other options like drugs or even genetic engineering for future generations to make them resistant to the effects of zerog. perhaps nano machinery or bio machines could rebuild bone structure as its lost.. who knows.
Conversely Coolhand, don't think I don't like you or your work. I'm sure you'd have a laugh at many of my projects...
absolutely not, and i resent the suggestion i'm snobby about others work somehow.
Every addon developer has different ideas and i respect that even if i don't personaly agree with something i think you have a right to express that idea without being nagged about it in your own thread, or ridiculed in others.
I certainly don't see the sense in debating things endlessly which are just technical issues that haven't been proven either way when you're dealing with fictional craft... its arrogant to assume and you're just basically singing from the hymn sheet and regurgitating someone elses "facts".
You've brought up another one there about the centrifuge,as far as i know, its an entirely untested concept for real spacetravel but something ive considered anyway.
Most other posters here are as technically savvy as you, but they appreciate the concept for what it is, rather than push their own preconceived ideas of what a spacecraft should look like. I would never go into another persons thread and mock them for their concept...
There's also the issue of getting people in and out of the centrifuge safely and conveniently.
then you've missed the posts concerning the elevator car system. this has all been planned in from the start moving people around inside the structure. i feel like i've said this before in another way, recently...Think perhaps you should wait and see the final work before you pass any further judgement on the project.
This is just awesome work you've done, Steve, as usual!
Pity that Ron's
own website doesn't have much on it, but here's a discussion thread about his "semiotic standard" for A L I E N...
Propsummit.com - Nostromo Signage
thanks, id have had to look for those...
they will give me some more inspiration for one or two more signs to use inside.
First, sorry for my poor english.
I´ve read this thread carefully, and i think this will be an amazing vessel, Coolhand. I liked the water landing idea, and i have a couple of ideas for solving the inconveniences. First, the water splashing problem is solved simply putting the exhausts far from the surface, like the Beriev Be 200 aircraft:
http://www.beriev.com/eng/Be-200_e/Be-200_e.html
and second, regarding the wing size/area issue for landing, u could use a common sci-fi topic with scientific roots today: shapeshifting materials. During reentry, wings would be short and delta-shaped, after that, the external sections of the wings could enlarge for a low-speed landing.
i'm really not building it for a splashdown despite some of the discussion. but those are interesting, creative suggestions and thankyou. Placing engines up higher causes issues in space because you're moving the centre of thrust higher up and i try and position things around the centre of mass to simplify things. but yeah once again this is just an engineering issue, you could raise and lower the engines as needed, or just have the ship shaped in such a way that it copes with the offset thrust in air and space by changing its attitude in spaceflight... so it might fly 'nose up' in space and angle the thrust up slightly.
Assuming you deal with all the challenges in building something like that, i see no reason why a sufficiently advanced spacecraft couldn't operate even fully underwater. and i'm sure one day we'll have an underwater world to explore in orbiter.
I particularly like the idea of shape-shifting materials but thats maybe more than i want to get into with this project. not to mention a technical challenge, as though its possible to do, i'm not sure how we would handle mesh morphing and deformations in real time in the orbiter engine.
I think if i were to do that i'd give it swing wings as then you're just moving objects around.
and for what its worth, that was a very well written post and i understood it fully.:thumbup:
:hello:
:thumbup::tiphat:
