Hiding a city ship

[orbitingpluto]

I found a neat Stargate City Ship over at the Rag Tag Fleet and wanted to hide it in the solar system to be "discovered" by intrepid Ummus. Problem is I don't know where to hide it so it won't be discovered by telescopes or other Earth-based instruments. Probes are okay, so long as there isn't "The (whatever-whatever) probes that (whomevers) sent back in (whenever) must have not picked it up Captain" moments in the back story of the missions. I was just going to land it on Jupiter but and say that's that, but then I thought going here might get me a better hiding place for the City ship. I also hope that if my spot isn't really a good place somebody here would let me know.

 

[Carmen A]

As far as hiding goes just go behind a planet's shadow and enforce very strict emissions control. It's easier than it sounds if your ship is not Death Star sized.

How successful you are depends on the detection and patrol resources of the opposition force.

If it were sci fi going against present-day tech then it's a piece of cake to approach from opposite Earth's orbit, sprint in to Venus and use contragravity to maintain position out of Earth LOS. No anti-starship detection outpost over there = big ship unseen.

Some instruments might detect something out of the ordinary going at a really fast speed past the inner Solar System but with sci fi propulsion, who cares? If you got this close to Earth you could jump over and say hi anytime you wanted.

 

[dgatsoulis]

You can try the L3 point in the Sun - Earth system. It being on the same orbit that Earth is but on the exact opposite side of the Sun, would hide it from Earth based observations and it's also pretty stable.

 

[T.Neo]

Putting a planet between you and whatever you don't want to see you is an obvious choice. Problem is, how do you stay behind the planet?

An orbit will move you into view, and hovering won't work because you'll expend a lot of propellant, which in turn expends a lot of mass... mass people might detect. It's not a sustainable solution. Statites would probably become spatially impractical (you'll end up being shadowed by the planet) and probably impractical mass wise, for such a large vehicle.

Using the magnetic field of the planet in question to keep you aloft (using a magnetic sail) would probably be the best option, as long as it did not affect the magnetic field of the planet in question too much.

The best way (and this is perfectly effective, unless someone does really careful survey or makes an extraterrestrial subway system) to hide a powered-down or defunct vessel is to bury it, preferably on one of the outer planet moons. You don't even have to bury it deep, just deep enough to mask the surface of the hull, as well as the vague shape of the vessel... you could dress it up as an unusual surface feature, maybe.

The best place for it to be is Uranus or Neptune, they haven't been extensively explored, and their moons haven't been extensively photographed like those of Jupiter and Saturn have.

Even a small moon would work, and even the minor moons of Jupiter and Saturn aren't that well documented.

 

[n72.75]

Behind a planet or the sun.

 

[orbitingpluto]

Neat responses! I do want to point out I did presupposed that the city ship was abandoned, and I should have said so. So there isn't going to be any high speed flybys of Earth to scare the hairless-ape beings. In my own 'verse at least; I'm not stopping you from going to the Rag Tag fleet and getting your very own city ship with which to terrorize the puny Earthlings to your hearts content.

Anyway, if I hid it behind a planet or the sun(relative to the Earth), wouldn't somebody detect it if they sent a probe or a manned mission elsewhere in the solar system? I was thinking along the lines of the city ship being abandoned for safekeeping in this solar system; to do that it must be hidden not just from Earth but from everywhere else, so simply hiding it from Earth doesn't cut it.

The burying idea is a good one, and I might borrow it. I would like to anyone's thoughts on sinking it part way into Jupiter to hide it, or if anyone has a different idea.

 

[T.Neo]

Sinking something into Jupiter would be troublesome. Not only is there radiation there, but also lightning and turbulent winds. Suspending it via some sort of balloon for any considerably length of time would be highly impractical, and suspending it with antigravity would probably just be impractical.

Also depends on how deep you might want to "sink" the ship, too high and it becomes too obvious, too low and it's crushed...

 

[orbitingpluto]

I had a feeling sinking it into Jupiter would be impractical, I just didn't know why. Thanks T.Neo:thumbup:

So anyone know which poorly explored moon I should hide it on?

 

[T.Neo]

That's really hard to tell, there are so many of them, and because they're poorly researched there's not much data on them either.

Also depends on the size of your 'city ship'. This O'Neill colony can sustain millions of people, and it is comparable in size to Phobos:

A Stanford Torus, on the other hand, can house 10 000 people, and is itself dwarfed by an O'Neill cylinder.

It might be a better bet for the size of a "city ship", considering that such a ship would actually be a travelling spacecraft rather than a gigantic colony that never leaves its own orbit.

 

[Hielor]

Couldn't you have it be Phobos? Maybe they covered the thing with enough rock/dust to completely hide the shape of the vessel, but the core of the moon is still a ship...

Or do the same thing, but in an asteroid.

 

[Ark]

Pick out one of the ice moons at the edge of the solar system, put the ship into a binary orbit with that moon, and cover it with ice. Just like the Charon relay.

 

[C3PO]

I'd hide mine behind a humongous kuiper belt object that hasn't been discovered yet. :thumbup:

 

[Ark]

Hide it at the Sun-Neptune L2 point. Have we invented a telescope that can spot city-sized objects that far yet? :lol:

 

[orbitingpluto]

The city ship I'm talking about is this:

^Relative to Phobos

^Near the Capes's VAB

^Moved away from the VAB, near L39B

Note: It's based on Atlantis(but is not THE Atlantis) from the sci-fi series Stargate: Atlantis, and I didn't make this myself. It was made by the geniuses at the Rag Tag Fleet. If you want it, it is at the Rag Tag Fleet here. Stop and thank them while your there too. /Note.

Hiding it in space doesn't seem like a good idea from my perspective because eventually either it or it's maneuverings would be noticed(My thoughts are colored by the Atomic Rockets page about stealth here). Anyone is welcome to refute me on this, provided you can argue your point sensibly.

Burying it in a minor moon or handy asteroid is what I'm thinking of now. Enough rocky mass can block out whatever emissions a powered down City ship could make, and burial it has the advantage of all around protection from prying eyes.

So burial is what I'm aiming for now. The question is where and how deep. I'm thinking somewhere in the outer planets for the where part; a nice little moon or minor object that isn't high on the list of things that anyone would want to investigate. More rocky than icy is nice. How deep I couldn't guess. I think it wouldn't have to be super deep though, since I'm not trying to do a 'seal the evil in a cave' bit. Just deep enough so no one would bother it till plot and physics draws my Ummu explores near.

 

[Sky Captain]

What about landing it on Titan? Atmosphere would prevent it from being seen by optical telescope, a radar mapping mission might find it, but chances are it would be considered to be some unusual geologic formation. Yet it might be noticable enough that manned mission to Titan would decide to investigate closer the anomaly their radars detected.

 

[Frogisis]

Neptune's moon Triton might be a good spot - It's only been imaged in a flyby iirc, and the terrain is so wonky already something like this could be conceivably hidden in a fissure somewhere.

Great model, btw - That really would be something exciting to stumble upon. Maybe you could also make some kind of terrain mesh to conceal it from certain angles so you have a big dramatic reveal when it's discovered.

 

[Keatah]

A hollowed out asteroid. Or perhaps several asteroids in real close proximity to the ship, tethered with cables.. Perhaps on the crater on Mimas? OR another crater elsewhere.


Anyways, I'd love to see some cool hide and seek treasure hunt add-ons. We'd need a "communications" and "Sensor" MFD that would help us look around and examine things. I'd love to find alien artifacts strewn throughout the solar system.!!

 

[deltawing777]

Usually to hide somthing..its best to hide it in plain sight and overlooked. Maybe on the floor of the sea or deep trench (bermuda triangle) or even under "the face" on mars or even under the pyramids in egypt. Or the crater off the coast of mexico that supposedly killed the dinosaurs..im sure theres alot of silt and sand covering it by now

 

[Pinguinboy]

Well, it might sound dangerous, but hiding it in Saturn's rings would be able to "cloak" it.

 

[orbitingpluto]

Anyways, I'd love to see some cool hide and seek treasure hunt add-ons. We'd need a "communications" and "Sensor" MFD that would help us look around and examine things. I'd love to find alien artifacts strewn throughout the solar system.!!

Urwumpe made a [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1092"]Sensor MFD[/ame] actually. A treasure hunting/debris collecting group would be easy to make with something like Sensor MFD to scan for stuff. I think I'll have a go at trying it out and seeing if it works in 2010.

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Anyway, right now I'm working out hiding it on Proteus, a moon of Neptune. It's only been explored in a flyby and it has a heavily cratered surface, with valleys, scarps, and grooves existing. The first two things(Outer planet and poorly explored) is what I what I want, but the craters and the valleys make it sound like there could be Bonestell-like scenery there. It's bit large for the City Ship to be the thing itself, but the views! I think I found my hiding spot.