New Arctic Expansion - The Vesper
VectorMaster22
(I left my keys in the Neptune Escape Rocket when I was trying to get stuff for my time capsule) Join Date: 2018-04-23 Member: 240271Members
(I left my keys in the Neptune Escape Rocket when I was trying to get stuff for my time capsule) Join Date: 2018-04-23 Member: 240271Members
I haven't watched many videos, so, sorry if I missed something, but one of the Subnautica devs (@Flayra) posted something on twitter about a space station known as "the Vesper." This is what he posted.
Now, I know that this might already be out of date (they have already replaced the "space elevator" with a rocket) but, what are your thoughts about it? How would it be implemented, and what would it be used for?
Now, I know that this might already be out of date (they have already replaced the "space elevator" with a rocket) but, what are your thoughts about it? How would it be implemented, and what would it be used for?
Comments
I LIKED the space elevator...
Still would be cool though.
Maybe the planet gravity is weaker, or it is rotating very fast. Or maybe it's using some sort of constant propulsion, but then it isn't orbiting, more like flying.
Anyways, I do not understand space elevators logic. It is like magic, same as electrons and airplanes.
I'm pretty sure that phasegates are supposed to be used on the industrial scale, meaning that they are really big, and they are only used by spaceships. I don't 100% know if this is true.
It kinda reminds me of a railroad they constructed in the Netherlands, which is completely useless and also over budget. The government pushed it through, despite lots of criticism, because they wanted a faster way to supply factories with resources. The thing is, the government seems to be completely clueless on how factories resupply their depots using river barges transporting huge quantities from the Rotterdam and Eemshaven sea ports
Yes they are MUCH slower, but they are so much more cost effective. And factories, unbeknownst to the government, have this magical thing called "resupply schedules". And if by some odd occurrence they run out, they call in the tried and proven freight supply trucks.
My guess is that an elevator is an insane investment and with the existence of phasetech, I simply do not see any need for it. I mean the TSF also transport down their troops using infantry portals after they've set up a base using a dropship. Phasetech is IMHO vastly superior to a hugely expensive elevator that would simply not be cost effective and also would require unimaginable maintenance work, just to keep it running
/rant
*ahem* nanites -> my point is moot
If it's just cargo, why not use a huge cannon? A rail gun that shoots cylindrical containers filled with ice-cream to resupply an orbiting space station sounds fun.
Geosynchronous order orbit (wow, thanks auto-correct!).
A space elevator would require super strong materials, like carbon nano-tubes or something. We can't make these yet, but we're probably not far off, like a couple of decades at the most. I think it can be assumed that these materials exist in the Subnautica universe, and are fairly common.
Someone pointed out that a small phase gate, like the kind used by the military, would be cheaper than a huge structure like a space elevator, but we don't know that. With the kind of fabricator technology in common use, churning out the materials for a large structure might be relatively trivial. It could also be that phase gates need much more exotic materials, and/or are difficult to miniaturize. Think of the first Iron Man movie, and how no one could figure out how to miniaturize the arc-reactor technology (besides Tony Stark, of course).
Maybe it's just too expensive to make phase gates commonly, and only the military has the budget to use them like that. In that case, it wouldn't be commercially viable for a for-profit entity to use them on anything but a massive scale. i.e. The huge amounts of cargo you ship through them covers the cost of their construction and operation.
We also know that materials can be deconstructed pretty easily, so when they're done with the elevator, they could just take it apart and re-use the materials elsewhere. Therefor, a space elevator would be cheaper over time than a phase gate, and probably more efficient than rockets. But just because an idea makes sense, doesn't mean people are going to do it. Just imagine the corporate political infighting over whether to use rockets or an elevator.
Well, for starters a phase gate would require an immense amount of energy every time you want to phase something out. No matter if it works by dematerializing at one end and rematerializing at the other or just creating some kind of space-time wormhole between both points. It would require an excessive amount of energy so it would not be an efficient way of simply moving cargo out to space
The TSF marines use them in battle in ns2 because... well they are at war. And we all know how any country at war is willing to spend every single penny and resource of their land just to have the slightest advantage in battle. But they would never do that in normal circumstances. People will not use a TSF portal to go to work from their home, for example
When talking about big phase gates for long range space travel you have a simple solution to the energy problem. You can just build your space gates near to big stars, which pretty much provide you with an almost unlimited amount of energy
Seems I'm allergic to Vespas
Auto-correct.
From the wiki:
I've never played Natural Selection either, but I just assumed that because the people using the gates were called marines, that they belonged to some kind of military organization. I can't believe I'm offended enough at your pedantry to even respond, but here we are. Pointing out little mistakes like "order" vs "orbit" or my misunderstanding of what the TSF is doesn't contribute to the conversation.
Better to let it go, like I should have done instead of writing this post.
FYI, the TSF,
Giving the marines their time window to deal with it as soon as the first boots hit the ground. Why not just nuke it from orbit you say, see these facilities are worth a bit too much to merely blow up, so in comes the TSF to solve these "little" problem. An important thing to note is that the Kharaa tends to go into hibernation mode and retreats back to one Hive if it has consumed all the resources (victims and power sources). But as soon as it detects fresh meat, so to speak, it will wake up once more. With the Hive Mind spawning it's defensive creatures and ramping up it's capabilities to meet the threat until it is eliminated and of course absorbed into the Hive Biomass.
Funnily enough, the TSF is quite understaffed and under equipped as they are mostly under wraps and kept from the public light. Something they, the various governments, don't want to mention to the public for fairly obvious reasons.
In all due respect, I only wanted to point out that you said that the military used phasegates. I don't necessarily know if the TSF is a branch of military in the NS universe, I just thought you were talking about the actual military in real life. Obviously, I knew that you didn't mean it that way, its just a pet peeve I have when people start talking about video games without specifiing that they are talking about a video game. For instance (sorry in advance), I always make fun of people when they start talking about Fortnite, but they don't say that they are, so I just hear "Hey, I killed three people yesterday with my bolt-action sniper!" (Either that, or I have some very messed up friends.) Anyway, sorry about insulting you somehow.
"Hey, did you know Thanos dabs?"
The thrust of the article is:
So after reading the article, there was no explanation as to why the elevator needed to be built on the equator or a planet. I would imagine the same concept would apply to a polar elevator, but adding a mechanism to counter or adapt to the orbital spin of the planet, such as having the mooring be held in a magnetic enclosure, providing the tethering of the elevator without transferring the planetary rotation along the cable.
Because it needs to be in a geosynchronous orbit (i.e. its orbit will follow the planet rotation, so it will remain stationary relative to the ground).
Yeah that's it @Maalteromm. I should have better used the term geostationary orbit rather than geosynchronous (these two terms are often used interchangeably since the equatorial geostationary orbit is the particular kind of geosynchronous orbit most in use for communication and weather satellites).
You can see from this gif that, in tems of space realestate, the geostationary options are very limited by the physics: You can vary the up-down altitude, but not the north-south latitude. That's because the centre of a geostationary satellite's circular orbit must be the same as Earth's centre of gravity. So, no regular space elevators in the USA I'm afraid.
On the other hand, a skyhook might be a possibility for @jehrek's ice station.
A skyhook can be conceived as a space elevator that doesn't quite reach the ground. You could have a skyhook in a polar orbit (see pic below) so its Earthside terminal regularly locates above the same polar location (say once a day). Such an arrangement would indeed be geosynchronous (i.e. syncs up with a place), but not geostationary. But a nice solution though - you'd have to still do some air-freight to the passing terminal, but a whole lot less than we have to now. Addtionally, this skyhook would pass over, not just the Arctic, but every other latitude twice a day. So that would have to be a big plus for us space tourists!
In short,
You cannot have zero momentum and remain in in orbit. Tied/tethered to a planet's pole you'd start dropping back towards the planet because the planet is spinning around that axis, you'd be spinning in place instead of orbiting. Unless you put engines on the thing to constantly push you away from the planet to counter terminal velocity, which is kinda a nonsensical and wasteful concept. You can use orbital mechanics in your favor at the cost of zero energy use, apart from an orbital maneuvering system to correct deviations or a planet axis wobble like Earth has