 September 12, 2012 - 5:38pm | WATCH THE WINNING EXPERIMENTS LIVE FROM 250 MILES ABOVE EARTH 9/13/2012 Frontier Discussion Topics
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 September 12, 2012 - 7:29pm | As the number of stations question, the answer is a lot. Even in a low orbit, like where the ISS is, you have a orbit whose circumfrence is on the order of 40-43,000 km. So even if you required 1000 km between stations, you could put 40-43 stations in that orbit alone. If you only requried 500 km the number would double and so forth. Remember that a HS 6 station is only 1.2 km in diameter so that's a lot of space between small stations. Now you'd probaby only want one orbit for stations an any given altitude since different orbits at the same altitude always intercect at two points and you want to avoid collisions. So if you spaced out your orbits in 500 km altitude levels and allowed one spacestation orbit per level you could put a lot of stations into orbit. You could easily end up with hundreds or even thousands of stations if you wanted to and not really run any risk of collision. The mass of the stations is negligible compared to the mass of the planet. Mass would only be a factor in lifting the material off planet and trying to move them if the need arose. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
September 12, 2012 - 7:36pm | How do corporations keep their secrets when communicating from their
space-labs to the planets surface, another station, moon base or a ship
in orbit? I can think of lots of ways. 1) All communications are encrypted. Even to the point of one time cipher pads where necessary 2) Tight beam (i.e. laser) communication media. That way everything isnt' broadcast in every direction but is much more focused (plus it takes less power). 3) Pre-arranged "random" frequency shifts of the carrier signal. You use transmission media that bounce around transmitting a few bytes on one frequency, then shift to the next, transmit some more, etc. Those come immediately to mind and I'm sure there are others. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 September 15, 2012 - 1:10am | Kind of OT, and I am no engineer.. Well other then LEGOs maybe.. Could you connect these stations in space (once there are the hundreds or thousands) and thus create a kind of "planet ring"? that is one huge station or would there be some kind of rotational shear that would rip the station apart? It might actually be a reason to sell more station permits to create this "planet ring" Cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am. Batty [Blade Runner] I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. |
September 15, 2012 - 1:15am | Also could the "planet Ring" then rotate and produce it's own gravity? Once the ring was in motion would it need power to keep rotating or would it be in a constant state of free fall? If it was in a state of free fall there would be no gravity, so how would this work? The ring would have to be in a free fall to maintain its orbit, yet with free fall there is no gravity produced. So you would have to accelerate the ring making it spin, but then how would it maintain its orbit and not crash into the planet? Cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am. Batty [Blade Runner] I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. |
September 15, 2012 - 1:24am | Would the size of the ring create it's own gravity? Would it have a false CG, if you will, that would be at a point at the planets core where by it's huge size ( surrounding the plant ) it would some how create its own gravity simply because it is a HUGE ring surrounding the planet? I am thinking a ring like Saturn's ring but as a complete space station and not some bubble completely surrounding the planet. Also this ring would be visible then from the planet and would it cause any adverse weather conditions since it has or would have gravity and it would cast a shadow of some kind I would think?? maybe not.... ( sorry if I hijacked your thread, if I did please mod this to it's own thread ) Cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am. Batty [Blade Runner] I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. |
 September 15, 2012 - 4:26am | I doubt that non purpose built space stations could be connected in that fashion or rather you would have to build a "ring world" on purpose and the scale of that engineering project is mind boggling- even if it is just a ring station and not a ring world it would almost be something you'd want to ascribe to the tetrarchs in the SF universe. No doubt the structure of the ring is underpinned with the famed federanium and the poor man's strong metal titanium but the shear ammount of those metals that this would require is WOW, little green aliens would invade to just scrap the refined metal. EDIT: that reminds me I should try to load onto my phone the PDF of the Ring World rpg I down loaded from scribd and see about reading it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 15, 2012 - 9:55am | Kind of OT, and I am no engineer.. Well other then LEGOs maybe..
Could you connect these stations in space (once there are the hundreds or thousands) and thus create a kind of "planet ring"? that is one huge station or would there be some kind of rotational shear that would rip the station apart? It might actually be a reason to sell more station permits to create this "planet ring" I created a "ring station" around a small moon. I was designing it to be the largest ship dock in the Frontier - you could have loads of adventures just in this area w/o needing a ship, perfect for Alpha Dawn characters. I got the idea from Dawn of Defiance. (Never ran these mods, but always wanted to under WEG d6). Hann Sobo, the dralasite, "That's no moon, it's a ring station."  |
 September 15, 2012 - 10:21am | Kind of OT, and I am no engineer.. Well other then LEGOs maybe..
Could you connect these stations in space (once there are the hundreds or thousands) and thus create a kind of "planet ring"? that is one huge station or would there be some kind of rotational shear that would rip the station apart? It might actually be a reason to sell more station permits to create this "planet ring" I created a "ring station" around a small moon. I was designing it to be the largest ship dock in the Frontier - you could have loads of adventures just in this area w/o needing a ship, perfect for Alpha Dawn characters. I got the idea from Dawn of Defiance. (Never ran these mods, but always wanted to under WEG d6). Hann Sobo, the dralasite, "That's no moon, it's a ring station." Oh man that's epic! Send me the pdf!  |
September 15, 2012 - 10:39am | The plan is to submit it to the 'zine. I'm considering making it a series of articles taking a section at a time and either providing a usable map, adventure seeds, NPC's etc. Kinda of a long term thing. |
 September 15, 2012 - 2:37pm | Don't know how much this would help but there was a simple example of a ring station in the original "Starship Troopers". Supposedly it kept the Earth safe from all the meteors the Bugs were throwing at the planet. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 September 19, 2012 - 12:08am | rattraveler, I wached that yesterday. Was it a ring or just a large station, I couldn't tell. I thought it might be a ring due to the curve it had but they did not show much. |
September 19, 2012 - 2:11pm | The general take I took on it was that it was a ring station, there to protect the whole planet from asteriods. Not sure how it protected the Artic from a straight on attack though. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
