Why don’t we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone’s shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
They’re the same company. Do you pick which courier dropkicks you Faberge eggs into the gutter in front of your house? It’ll get delivered and you’ll be none the wiser which cannon fired.
You have me thinking of like… A ring around the equator with space elevators on it (with stations at the top), and “rail” tracks, with trains traveling between all the stations. Gaussian launchers sending packages to your nearest delivery depot.
Believe it or not, that’s a feasible (ish) plan for a space elevator we could build right now. Instead of having a counterweight at GEO that’s pulling on a carbon nanotube rope, you have a ring spinning inside another ring in LEO. The outer ring could be made of Kevlar, and IIRC, it would take something like a year or two of all current Kevlar production. You then need four stations approximately equidistant apart around the equator to act as counterweights.
The station for the Pacific would itself be quite the engineering challenge. Not a lot of land you can use at the place you need.
Okay, trying to wrap my brain around this one at 4:15am.
Is the idea that a ring around earth basically floats there because it’s around the whole planet? Like, when it attempts to fall towards earth on one side, it would require it to move up on the other, away from gravity? So it’s perpetually falling towards earth, but balanced because it’s also falling in the opposite direction on the other side of the of the planet?
Or have I completely misunderstood?
Also, one of the videos mentioned it would need to be filled with something (I forget now), in a vacuum tube that ran its whole length… What happens if the vacuum tube gets a hole in it? Does the whole thing break apart and crash to earth?
I want the future they describe, but I can’t say that I understand it lol
Been a while since I looked at this one, but the idea was that the inner ring would be rotating at faster than orbital velocity at that altitude. This would normally cause it to push itself out to a higher orbit, but the outer ring (or belt) would prevent that. That outer belt would be under a lot of tension, but not carbon nanotube level tension.
Why don’t we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone’s shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
I see no setting where this could go horribly wrong.
Thats exactly how I want my buttplug delivered - shot via a rail gun directly at it’s destination.
Im gonna need some concept art first. for research puposes
Currently seeking angel investors for 500m buy-in, or I’ll take a 200kg of plutonium, if you’ve got that.
Good god, the stress that would be on the hydrofoil’s connecting pieces makes my meager mind whimper.
What if I live in the geographic center of a continent? How do I know which coastline cannon to order from?
Depends on prevailing winds.
They’re the same company. Do you pick which courier dropkicks you Faberge eggs into the gutter in front of your house? It’ll get delivered and you’ll be none the wiser which cannon fired.
Honestly this does sound fucking awesome. It could be sold to the ‘murica crowd.
You have me thinking of like… A ring around the equator with space elevators on it (with stations at the top), and “rail” tracks, with trains traveling between all the stations. Gaussian launchers sending packages to your nearest delivery depot.
Project Atlantis would be an excellent start. Not much in that for Europe though
It’s a ring around the Pacific rim, held aloft by centrifugal effects like a whirled billy
I haven’t had billy tea in too long
Believe it or not, that’s a feasible (ish) plan for a space elevator we could build right now. Instead of having a counterweight at GEO that’s pulling on a carbon nanotube rope, you have a ring spinning inside another ring in LEO. The outer ring could be made of Kevlar, and IIRC, it would take something like a year or two of all current Kevlar production. You then need four stations approximately equidistant apart around the equator to act as counterweights.
The station for the Pacific would itself be quite the engineering challenge. Not a lot of land you can use at the place you need.
Okay, trying to wrap my brain around this one at 4:15am.
Is the idea that a ring around earth basically floats there because it’s around the whole planet? Like, when it attempts to fall towards earth on one side, it would require it to move up on the other, away from gravity? So it’s perpetually falling towards earth, but balanced because it’s also falling in the opposite direction on the other side of the of the planet?
Or have I completely misunderstood?
Also, one of the videos mentioned it would need to be filled with something (I forget now), in a vacuum tube that ran its whole length… What happens if the vacuum tube gets a hole in it? Does the whole thing break apart and crash to earth?
I want the future they describe, but I can’t say that I understand it lol
Been a while since I looked at this one, but the idea was that the inner ring would be rotating at faster than orbital velocity at that altitude. This would normally cause it to push itself out to a higher orbit, but the outer ring (or belt) would prevent that. That outer belt would be under a lot of tension, but not carbon nanotube level tension.
Just anchor one of the garbage patches and use that.