Re: [Sci.nanotech] Re: Orbitals and Ring Worlds....


In article <126sntcjm0qa0db@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, perry@xxxxxxxxxxxx
says...


John.S.Novak@xxxxxxxxx, III <jsn@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
In article <126q0rm34nl1377@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, progresscity@xxxxxxxxx
says...

I just spent the past couple days doing some reading on orbitals and
ring worlds.... The concept is nice, but they both have one major
problem. They require an exotic form of matter that doesn't exist, and
probably never will.

What would be the maximum size of an orbital if it were made out of
carbon nanotubes?

Would it be possible to place a few billion of these around the Sun, in
an orbit suitable for human life?

Almost certainly not.

Even at the strictly magical tensile strength required to create the
Ringworld as described, the thing massed about a thousand times the
Earth itself, or, about as much as Jupiter. It also required
centuries' worth of solar output equivalent in energy to set in motion.

Given that hypothetical variants made out of far far weaker carbon
materials would probably be heavier, then even assuming you could
dynamically stabilize one (somehow) implies that you simply don't have
enough material in the solar system to build even one, let alone a
billion, let alone set them all moving.

Nanotechnology is not magic.

I don't know what is meant by an "orbital" in this context, so I'm not
quite so dismissive. Although Larry Niven style ringworlds are flat
out impossible given our understanding of physics, both because of the
materials and because they would not be stable, "ordinary" space
habitats with enough spin to provide 1g environments are not
impossible.

Because it was linked in with Ringworlds by context, I thought first of
Iain Banks' "Culture" orbitals, a description of which can be found
here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_Orbital

These are Ringworld-like, but even more clearly magical than Niven
Ringworlds. If that was the wrong type of orbital to be thinking of,
then I was in error and apologize.

--
John S. Novak, III
The Humblest Man On The Net

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: [Sci.nanotech] Re: Orbitals and Ring Worlds....
    ... I just spent the past couple days doing some reading on orbitals and ... centuries' worth of solar output equivalent in energy to set in motion. ... materials would probably be heavier, ... let alone set them all moving. ...
    (sci.nanotech)
  • Re: Orbitals and Ring Worlds....
    ... I just spent the past couple days doing some reading on orbitals and ... centuries' worth of solar output equivalent in energy to set in motion. ... materials would probably be heavier, ... let alone set them all moving. ...
    (sci.nanotech)
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