11-17-2017, 11:00 AM | #101 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
So no, it's not a lot by any measure - it's a noticeable but fairly modest investment by K2 standards.
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
|
11-17-2017, 11:19 AM | #102 | |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
Stage one, first space colonization revolution. A period of rapidly converting the asteroid belt into spin-gravity habitats. Might take a few centuries. Stage is two a much slower stage of disassembling Mercury, various moons, and maybe Mars. This stage takes many thousands of years. I'm not clear on whether the railgun approach would work on Mars or not; I've seen people talk about putting it on Olympus Mons, and if that's necessary, it just kills your throughput. Also, if a serious Mars terraforming project gets going in those first few centuries, it could become a real barrier to disassembly. About the same time as serious strip-mining of Mercury begins, serious resources probably also get devoted to interstellar colonization. Maybe Venus terraforming as well; I don't know if that's guaranteed-feasible or not. |
|
11-17-2017, 12:00 PM | #103 | |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
Another thing to consider is that Dyson Swarms are also weapons of mass destruction. It would be easy for a Dyson Swarm to reflect and focus 1% of the sunlight it receives to a planetary target with 100 ly, so building a Dyson Swarm would probably be considered a prelude to annihilation of other civilizations. As soon as another advanced civilization detected the build up of a Dyson Swarm, they would probably send relativistic weapons to annihilate the builder civilization. |
|
11-17-2017, 12:01 PM | #104 |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Is anyone able to have an informed opinion on the guaranteed-to-be-feasible specific impulse for a fusion (or rocket)? That really matters for the speed of interstellar colonization.
|
11-17-2017, 12:05 PM | #105 | ||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
11-17-2017, 12:06 PM | #106 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Atomic Rockets has an engine list (http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm...enginelist.php). You will want TW thrusters for STL interstellar ships.
|
11-17-2017, 01:20 PM | #107 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
If you're using rockets, the answer is definitely going to be in the range of 'insanely expensive, and what's your motivation?'
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
|
11-17-2017, 01:44 PM | #108 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
You need to dismantle Mercury to provide the required material for the Dyson Swarm (otherwise, you will not have enough material for 0.01% of a Dyson Swarm). If you do not move the remaining material, their weight will crush the mining robots as they delve into the interior of Mercury to find the materials that you want to use for the construction of the Dyson Swarm. I do agree though that it is a lot of effort for an excessive amount of energy production.
|
11-17-2017, 01:52 PM | #109 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
There's no hard number for how much surface area constitutes a "true" Dyson ring, so I don't think that you can say what the mass of 1% or whatever is.
Besides he was asking about all the mass you need to build your colonization fleet. |
11-17-2017, 02:20 PM | #110 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
|
Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative
Quote:
(Also, mercury is only two orders of magnitude more massive than the asteroid belt...) If you mean me, I don't believe I was.
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
|
Tags |
ultra-tech |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|