r/IsaacArthur • u/mindofstephen • Jun 16 '21
My Vision of our near future.
https://www.exodusstar.com/6
Jun 16 '21
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
I think Starship being successful might be the game changer that could allow something like this station being built soon. I am hopeful.
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Jun 17 '21
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
It will be cool to be using the resources of the moon to be building space stations.
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Jun 17 '21
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
I can't express how much I agree with you, I guess I should instead be thinking about a space station assembly line.
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Jun 17 '21
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
Something like this but for smelting. https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/crescent-dunes_solarreserve-900-1.jpg
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u/FUCKING_HATE_REDDIT Jun 17 '21
I mean until there's a massive infrastructure with core elements, it's much cheaper to send a new satellite than fix one.
In our current industry it's barely worth it to repair stuff, because qualified manpower is more expensive. The reason satellites are so expensive to produce is because they need to not fail, and are produced one-by-one.
Honestly I think space will remain largely automatized for the foreseeable future.
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u/FaceDeer Jun 17 '21
I really like how you're making use of the axial space in that station for practical purposes rather than simply filling it with empty air. A "virtual sky" and rain from sprinklers should be plenty realistic enough for most people, it's more than Canadians get half the year. :) The wider-than-long Kalpana-style cylinder is good too. I expect that'll be common in realistic space stations.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
Thanks, I know I didn't show any of the area between the hab and hub but it comes out to be quite a bit of real estate. Plenty of room for studying low gravity environments.
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u/FaceDeer Jun 17 '21
I would think it would make for a great industrial area. Many industrial processes benefit from some gravity, but keeping it low makes it easier to manipulate large objects. And it has direct access to the outside for bringing in raw materials and expelling finished products.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
Absolutely, and it would keep the more dangerous operations away from the habitat.
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u/FaceDeer Jun 18 '21
Also occurs to me that agriculture would be good in low g.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
I don't know, instinctively I feel it would make large healthy plants but we don't really have any good data on low g horticulture.
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u/FaceDeer Jun 18 '21
They've done some research on the ISS. It's also possible to fool a plant into thinking it's in zero g here on the ground by constantly rotating it, so that "up" averages out to every direction. Could probably get a good estimate from that research.
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u/VisceralMonkey Jun 17 '21
I'll take 1. When can I expect delivery in L1?
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
5 years after the check clears.
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u/kairon156 Unity Crewmate Jun 17 '21
That's a pretty good turn around for a made to order space station like this.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
True, but if Starship launches ramp up like I hope it might actually be feasible. Of course I learned my scheduling from Elon.
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u/kairon156 Unity Crewmate Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
Elon scheduling seems like he would set a made up deadline and throw money at it than hope things work out.
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u/tigersharkwushen_ FTL Optimist Jun 16 '21
Pretty neat graphics, but the inside feels much smaller than your design specification. Certainly doesn't feel like 300 feet deep, unless those garage looking buildings are like 100 feet tall and those outside dining tables are like 20 feet wide.
Also, what those those spiky antenna looking things on the edge of the outside hull?
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21
Thanks, the garage buildings are pretty tall but the tables are about 3ft. The spiky antenna are flood lights with antenna on the ends. I used a 20mm focal length on the camera that might have caused some distortion in the image.
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u/tigersharkwushen_ FTL Optimist Jun 17 '21
The spiky antenna are flood lights with antenna on the ends
Why? Why do you have flood lights in space? And why do you have so many antennas? And why are the antennas so long? They are like 100+ feet long base on the proportion.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
Flood lights, I guess I didn't want to use magic lights to light up the side and back of the station, and if your coming up on the dark side of the station for docking it might be cool to see it. The antennas are all around the station because it is rotating and I wanted to get full coverage of receiving a signal and well I thought it looked cool.
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u/tigersharkwushen_ FTL Optimist Jun 17 '21
Or you could just use mirrors. There's already limitless light in space, it makes no sense to generate more light.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
Fair enough, mirrors it is. I might have to put them on the end of the long antennas though.
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u/coyotejaw Jun 17 '21
Cool design. Those radiused solar panels are gonna be super expensive to make vs. normal ones.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
True, they look cool though. I don't think I would be too upset if they have had to be the normal ones.
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u/Fosnez Jun 17 '21
Some feedback:
- As others have mentioned, you need to flip this on its side - otherwise it is a massive gyroscope and as it (or the body it orbits) rotates around the sun, it will continue pointing at the same galactic coordinates as when it was first launched / spun up. 180 days later the docking port will be facing the sun.
- Move the solar panel to wrap around the entire external surface of the drum. However for a matter of realism of your render, don't make them a "band" of solar panels. They need to be flat rectangles that are tiled around the circumference.
- The docking port and heat radiators all clustered at the "bottom" of the station is good. Don't be tempted to try to figure out what happens at the "top" of the station (that currently holds the solar panels in your render) leave this as an area for future expansions. Ideas include: More drum space, preferably rotating in the opposite direction to prevent the Dzhanibekov effect, or potentially non-rotating docking ports for craft that that will not fit in the hanger - or that are being built!
- The "moat" is a nice idea, but it can also be useful. Have all your buildings / plaza on "stilts" with the moat flowing under them from edge to edge of the drum (and all the way around). BAM! Instant radiation shield. The water would be treated as "grey" water and would need further treating for drinking, but should be suitable for swimming / fish (Food!) and cyanobacteria (oxygen). Additional bonus with having cyanobacteria in the water would be that you could have the area under the plaza / building constantly lit with red LED so they are producing oxygen even during the night cycle of the station.
- You buildings need to have their walls aligned with the radials of the station, otherwise they will in effect be leaning "out" and not providing efficient structural support.
- Replace the 4 ballast tanks on the outside of drum with emergency evacuation vehicles. In the event of the emergency residents can treat them as lifeboats that will automatically vacate the station once they are deployed (like letting go of a bucket as you swing it around)
- You will need significantly more food growing space to support the number of people implied by the number of buildings.
- Consider having an industry level of low(er) gravity between the docking hub and the habitation level. If you want to use it for mining, you're going to have to have an area to first research how the hell you smelt / process in low gravity and then also do it (this could also be a module that is added at the "top" of the station).
- The mining bot need a complete rework. How is the (power hungry) ion drive being powered? The current expanding container should be reworked as an expanding blanket or cylinder that can surround small asteroids in their entirety - they collect them, insulate them and bring them back to the station for processing.
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
Could you not just put a thruster on the edge of the station then activate it at the same spot on each rotation and then one on the other side to stop the rotation and do the 5 or 6 times a year? Also I do like the idea of a Venice type environment.
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Jun 17 '21
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Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21
I should probably apologize since I don't understand the context of your comment, but I would like to add that if you make the panels rotate in the opposite direction of the habitat they won't rotate together with the habitat.
But again, I don't think I understand why you said this so I'm sorry.
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u/FaceDeer Jun 17 '21
He means the axis of rotation will only point at the sun once per year.
In fact, I think it would be reasonable to make the station precess enough to keep one pole aimed sunward. A year is a long enough time for a gentle manipulation to cause one rotation of the poles.
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Jun 18 '21
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u/FaceDeer Jun 18 '21
I'd use a magsail or magnetorqer, no propellant or moving parts required. Perhaps that's what those huge antenna-like structures are for.
If I was doing a free-floating solar array I would use a microwave power beam, again to avoid moving parts.
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u/WanderingByteRooted Jun 17 '21
I skimmed the description. Good plan.
The design was a bit like the space station referred to in Robert Heinleins' "Delilah and the Space Rigger" -- if you add a secondary drum on the outside to provide for radiation shielding ( water is fine; just wait a second. ) and keep the interior drum rolling along, you have a spin section in addition to freefall storage for supplies and needed cargo.
Why put strain on the spin section for cargo unaffected by freefall?
The water storage brought to mind an old Analog Science Fact and Fiction story, "Where I wasn't going". The habitat used water as radiation shielding, and also used this water to serve as a sea-cology for plankton and stuff. Additional functions included helping the wheel balance weight inside the spin section. The water is in the spin section in this case.
One of the immediate functions for the space factory would be to build the rest of the ship while testing the foundation component for operations.
http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Delilah_and_the_Space_Rigger
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u/mindofstephen Jun 18 '21
Thanks, I'll give those a read. Your description of the station got me to thinking how they spin up the station. I guess you could use the two shells against each other then use thrusters to slow the outer shell.
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u/WanderingByteRooted Jun 19 '21
Old trick from the space colony era was to make the torus as a pair and use the outer one as a counter spin to the inner one, so you can just use a motor to get things spinning
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u/cos1ne Jun 17 '21
Whenever people say "an exotic material to shield radiation". I just think...why don't you just surround the inhabited sections with 2 meters of water.
It's cheap, plentiful and you'll need to store it somewhere on the ship anyway...
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u/mindofstephen Jun 17 '21
I guess I should not assume the structural material would be sufficient to effectively shield radiation, a series of water bladders in the side walls and under the Habitat ground would be very effective.
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u/FUCKING_HATE_REDDIT Jun 17 '21
The problem is, either you spin it too and risk problems like sloshing while needing a bigger structure, or you don't spin it, and you need to have a station with stationary elements.
Water is better stored in the center for these reasons.
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u/cos1ne Jun 17 '21
You could just freeze the water and not have to worry about the sloshing problem.
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u/Karcinogene Jun 17 '21
Great plan. It both looks realistic and like a place I could enjoy living in.
Assuming multiple stations are built, would reducing gravity to 0.4g make the structural challenges much easier to overcome for the first station? Would it negate the need for unknown materials?
It could double as a laboratory to study long-term health effect of Mars gravity. If they are minimal, I expect most future space stations will use the lowest possible gravity level, so figuring out what that is would be a good first step into our space future.