Idea A O´neil cilinder

[Hartmann]

Could be interesting a o´neil cilinder in low hearth orbit or in other planets as a space station

 

[Hielor]

Could be interesting a o´neil cilinder in low hearth orbit or in other planets as a space station

Does it bother anyone else that every single street in that video, even the ones in the middle of big cities, had trees along it at precise intervals? That just looked like overkill and completely ruined the video for me.

 

[Andy44]

Yeah, the tree-lined roads are annoying, but otherwise that's a pretty impressive vid. Imagine the poly count that mesh would make. I wonder if you could model it as a sort of wierd, inside-out planet instead?

 

[unussapiens]

It would be easy enough to model it as an inside out planet, you'd just need a way to flip everything inside (I can think of several ways).

 

[Hielor]

It would be easy enough to model it as an inside out planet, you'd just need a way to flip everything inside (I can think of several ways).

Not in Orbiter.

 

[Scarecrow]

If you're really going to make an orbiter addon out of this (which would be lots of fun to play with, I admit), please don't duplicate Manhattan in it. There would be absolutely no reason to do so, and I'm certain a better way to build a city would have been found by the time our technology and economy were developed enough to do this.

 

[T.Neo]

That is one brilliant vid, although I have to agree about those precisely placed trees.

I've been waiting for a space colony addon for quite some time.
Although something with that complexity would be cool, I don't see it as being that important.

And I think putting a "sunline" in the middle of the structure would be a better idea. Any thoughts?

P.S: Is that an F4 Phantom at 2:00?

 

[Andy44]

Has anyone attempted a Niven ringworld, yet? That would be a similar project.

 

[NukeET]

Something like it, the Big Wheel.

See here:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2548"]Earth 2120 Part 1: The Big Wheel[/ame]

 

[T.Neo]

Has anyone attempted a Niven ringworld, yet? That would be a similar project.

You mean the one that encircles a star? Too big.

 

[zerofay32]

Sorry, but I can't think of an O'Neil colony without thinking about Mobile Suit Gundam.

 

[Artlav]

Has anyone attempted a Niven ringworld, yet

Tried? Yes.
Succeeded?
....Not quite.

 

[T.Neo]

Tried? Yes.
Succeeded?
....Not quite.

What happened there? :blink:

 

[Andy44]

Well, assuming you could get a ringworld mesh with a ~1 AU radius to work in Orbiter, you need a way to keep it centered on the sun, which is a problem because things in Orbiter generally do not like to be positioned at the center of the sun, and then there is the issue of stabilizing the ringworld so that the sun stays at the exact center and doesn't fall on top of the habitable land. In the Ringworld Engineers this was done by automated bussard ramjet thrusters positioned on the rim of the structure, so you'd need an autopilot to simulate this.

 

[T.Neo]

Well, assuming you could get a ringworld mesh with a ~1 AU radius to work in Orbiter, you need a way to keep it centered on the sun, which is a problem because things in Orbiter generally do not like to be positioned at the center of the sun, and then there is the issue of stabilizing the ringworld so that the sun stays at the exact center and doesn't fall on top of the habitable land. In the Ringworld Engineers this was done by automated bussard ramjet thrusters positioned on the rim of the structure, so you'd need an autopilot to simulate this.

Firstly, if anything touches the surface of the sun, it flies off into the void at warp 5.

And about a 1 AU mesh, I doubt it's possible. I'm not sure, but I doubt it.

I've never read the books, so I'm not that familiar with the idea.

 

[craigh]

I first remember the O'Niels appearing in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science in the early to mid 1970's as a kid. Fantastic structures which mankind could potentially build within a few decades. In those days, 2001 was only a few years old, Apollo, NASA, etc. was still flying pretty high, etc. The possibilities were astounding and besides Vietnam, reality hadn't quite set in.

In zerofay32's images, those little cylinders orbiting around the end were intended to represent industrial facilities and other stuff that wasn't a good idea to have inside the main enclosure.

The 3 big panels were moveable mirrors to reflect sunlight through equally sized windows into the cylinder for interior lighting.

The cylinders rotated for gravity. There were to be projections at the centerline ends that didn't rotate and housed docking ports plus zero-G facilities.

As I recall, the idea was to stick these things in the Lagrange points.

Craig H

 

[T.Neo]

As I recall, the idea was to stick these things in the Lagrange points.

Yes, originally the Lunar L4/L5 points.

 

[Schimz]

Interstellar Ark
http://strangepaths.com/interstellar-ark/2007/02/14/en/

• 50Gt
• 20km long
• 15000 engines
• All parts are in tension (no rigid body).
• 2mm/s acc.

If anyone is interrested for coding this toy

 

[T.Neo]

Another problem I see here is that at least Anim8or has problems with objects at or bigger then 1 km; even the smallest of the three most popular designs, the Stanford Torus, is bigger then this.

I'm not sure about other modelling programs though.

Scaling meshes can be done in the mesh MFC application that comes with the SDK, but this seems to remove any textures or UV coodinates on the mesh. I'm not sure if Mesh Wizard could do the job.

And Orbiter even starts to have physics problems with large vessels; I heard Urwumpe saying that when he tried to make a 30 km long vessel, it wouldn't turn at all.

EDIT:

Imagine the poly count that mesh would make.

I dread to think.
If you look at the credits before the video, you'll see that there are millions of trees, thousands of buildings, and hundereds of clouds, and that it was all generated automatically.
I couldn't imagine that working in Orbiter unless it was all load-on demand as you came close.

 

[Artlav]

I dread to think.

Ever heared about procedural generation?
You can generate a detailed terrain mesh of a whole planet using only about 50000 polygons at once.
Works in Orbiter, btw. As a planet-sized vessel.