Possible Destination for an interstellar cruise ship?

[Astromancer]

How about breathable for a certain value of breathable. Picture a low gravity world with an atmospheric density like that of the high Himalayas. Technically breathable, but not very. The vast geodesic domes or supersize tents could hold an atmosphere that allowed comfortable breathing and human powered flight.

Alternatively, a deep lake could be pumped dry or a deep crater created that would naturally have a denser atmosphere.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

How about breathable for a certain value of breathable.

That would work.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Alternatively, a deep lake could be pumped dry or a deep crater created that would naturally have a denser atmosphere.

Since a low gravity, thin atmosphere world is also likely to be dry (at least eventually), there might also be dry ocean bottoms which are well below "mean sea level" when the planet had water. Such depressions would naturally hold whatever atmosphere the planet has and might have higher than normal atmospheric pressure. (Sort of the good version of caisson sickness from working at extreme depths below the ground.)

In addition to tents and the like to help retain atmosphere, it might also be helpful to have combination solar panels and radiation shields overhead.

Imagine a huge geodesic "greenhouse" made from combination radiation shields/mostly transparent solar panels (where efficiency is traded for light penetration) enclosing a portion of a deep, narrow rift valley that used to be an abyssal trench. People can do all sorts of low-G sports as long as they remain under the shield and within the rift.

Since the atmosphere is the thickest at the bottom of the trench, there would be elevators which act like "ski lifts" to take people to the top of the rift where the air is thinnest and where it's hardest to do low-G flight.

[Sir Tifyable]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Space habitats or spaceships with low gravity and 1+ ATM air pressure will be much more common, however, with interior size limited only by budgets and material strengths.

That suggested another idea to me: retirement homes. Until supermedicine eliminates the physical effects of aging (instead of just delaying them), retirement cruise ships will criss-cross the Galaxy, with gravity set at different levels on different decks so that people suffering with general deterioration in their bones and muscles can live at levels where they don't have to grunt standing up.

You could do the same on a planetary surface, of course, but if you are going to be living in a 'home' (and can afford it) why not make it one that cruises around so that you can visit tourist attractions in mobility scooters, then return home to a more comfortable gravity level?

PCs can be junior crew members (the senior officers will be busy with admin) like stewards. Part of their duties will be escorting the residents on those expeditions. Crotchety old fogies will provide them plenty of opportunities to find trouble, as will kidnappers hoping for ransom from these rich tourists, residents trying to find out what really happened in that mystery from their youth...

[Flyndaran]

Now a retirement setting is novel. It reminds me of a meme where someone actually spent their nest egg on just such a trip as it was cheaper than a retirement home. Interesting.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Now a retirement setting is novel. It reminds me of a meme where someone actually spent their nest egg on just such a trip as it was cheaper than a retirement home. Interesting.

Not a meme, there are actually people who do this.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Not a meme, there are actually people who do this.

Memes can be factual, can't they? At least I never thought they had to be fictional or purely metaphorical.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Not a meme, there are actually people who do this.

There's even at least one cruise ship whose cabins are owned by the residents (so, as they prefer to put it, a large privately owned residential yacht, rather than a cruise ship), and sails to destinations chosen by the passengers by some voting process. The cabins are considerably larger than those on a typical cruise ship, up to around 3000 sq ft -- so, house-sized, rather than hotel rooms/cabins, with the smallest studios being a tenth of that size -- or about the size of a larger balcony stateroom on a typical cruise ship. (Prices for those residences run around USD $2-15 million, though you'll have to wait for one to come up for sale.)

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I like the idea of setting adventures on an interstellar cruise ship. But I'm having trouble imagining where it would stop.

I get every X year events like Mardi Gras or other festivals. But I want something that only a starship cruise could offer.

Thanks in advance.

Bit late to the party, but does it have to be a modern style "go and see it" cruise or would you be content with a more turn of the last century passenger liner?

If a cruise is the only way most people will travel between planets/systems - like sea travel until the post WW2 era - then you don't need any special answer to the destination question - just pick a colony somewhere and connect it to either Earth or another core world (or vice versa), and then decide whether this is more like Liverpool to New York or London to Hong-Kong (how far, how many stops). Depending on your tech level (and the historical era you are analogising) the ship could then be a very isolated environment indeed (slow FTL and no FTL comms gives you something more like an early C19 Indiaman run, with things feeling more modern as you turn up the tech).

Alternatively - and building on some earlier posts - make the ship effectively a mobile habitat like a Culture GSV. That, of course, doesn't vary it much from a planet based adventure, but the culture of any given GSV could vary widely from anywhere else ... and then there's whatever the shipMind gestalt is up to...

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

If a cruise is the only way most people will travel between planets/systems - like sea travel until the post WW2 era - then you don't need any special answer to the destination question - just pick a colony somewhere and connect it to either Earth or another core world (or vice versa), and then decide whether this is more like Liverpool to New York or London to Hong-Kong (how far, how many stops). Depending on your tech level (and the historical era you are analogising) the ship could then be a very isolated environment indeed (slow FTL and no FTL comms gives you something more like an early C19 Indiaman run, with things feeling more modern as you turn up the tech).

This is the most likely answer.
People seem to be comparing the question to the modern day. However, without the fast equivalent to an airplane as an alternative, we need to look to pre-airplane times for better answers.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Tinman

This is the most likely answer.
People seem to be comparing the question to the modern day. However, without the fast equivalent to an airplane as an alternative, we need to look to pre-airplane times for better answers.

I think the question is about the space equivalent of modern pleasure cruises, not about anything that could technically be called a "cruise ship."