Project Space Ark

[T.Neo]

Getting all of this to ecologically "work" might be tough.

Also, whether you keep embryos or holographic storage data thingies you're going to have major trouble gestating these organisms till they can survive on their own- it would be like trying to make a Jurassic Park.

Fortunately many plants have stable seeds that can be kept for relatively long periods of time and germinate by themselves given the right conditions. Microscopic life should be far easier to keep, and to find.

You seem to have forgotten invertebrates though, and fungi. Critical organisms to an ecosystem. No insects? No crustaceans? No mushrooms?

Also, imagine the trouble trying to get all these organisms. And figuring out how to keep them alive in breeding populations, after gestation.

I think you'll need another ship. A fleet of other ships...

 

[The Shadow]

An Ark for each ecosystem!

and yes, I apparently missed many living things.

It would have to be a very well thought out process to get them all to survive. Jurassic Park on Mars!

As far as coding the lifeforms and stuff like that, I may just have the ship and not actually model the processes of getting life to settle down on Mars.

I was trying to get an estimate of payload size.

 

[jedidia]

= 8,193,532,000 cubic cm
/ 1000
/ 1000
/ 1000
= 8.193532 cubic km?

Watch me fail this time too.

:lol:

though this time it is clearly because of your unfamiliarity with the metric system. it's 8,193,532,000 cubic cm divided by 1e6 (100^3), that's 8193.532 cubic METERS.

divided by 1e9 (1000^3) gives you cubic kilometers, but the number has so many zeroes before the first relevant number that the notation doesn't really make sense.

 

[n122vu]

Your original motivation for this, the death of Earth and the need to find a new home, culminating in the creation of a huge vessel to ferry a large portion of mankind to a new frontier, reminds me of the old strategy game The 7th Legion. The basic premise was this: Earth has become so overpopulated that the environment has been damaged to the point that it cannot be repaired. A giant spacecraft is created in orbit that will hold everyone, just not everyone on the planet. A lottery is held, and only the best of humanity is taken. The rest are left to suffer and die along with the planet. But the environment turns itself around over several generations, and the descendants of the survivors, who had split into legions of controlling factions, have united under one common body, the 7th Legion. The descendants of those who left returned to Earth to fight the Legion for the planet that they believe is rightfully theirs.

I like the newer ship design, although I agree with the steering wheel comment, though it does look good. Hard to create a wheel like that without looking like something someone else has already done.

So the lifting body will be able to undock from the rest of the stack, correct? Do you plan for it to eventually leave the surface and re-dock with the stack, potentially for a return trip to Earth, or another planet?

 

[The Shadow]

I left the possibility of a return to Earth open, but it would take a long time to get the needed fuel for such a venture from Mars.