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alleyviper0
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***Edited post to include a more recent pic***
I guess I've spent too much time reading the atomic rocket page over the last fiew days. I'm starting to form a new picture in my head of what the far future of space flight looks like. A more realistic concept that could hold up to at least surface scrutiny.
One of the most important advances we need to make in my opinion is harnassing fusion power. Since we are only about 5 years away from prooving fusion power in a lab environment, I imagine that in 200+ years we've mastered it.
To open the door to space we have to come up with cheap and efficient ways of moving massive amounts of material from Earth's surface to low Earth orbit. I like the idea of a linear accelerator of some kind. Maybe a magnetic rail system powered by a fusion power plant that can accelerate a vehicle extremely fast and at high G. Too many G's for a human passanger to survive but perfect for launching raw materials and the like. People and more sensitive material can use the space shuttles.
I see a busy launch port busseling with trucks bringing in space containers. massive cranes load the containers onto a launch vehicle; a simple unmanned delivery system. The delivery vehicle is accelerated down the magnetic rail system which slowly curves upwards over miles of terrain. The delivery vehicle breaks the sound barrier within seconds of steady acceleration. As it leaves the rail system, the vehicle is pointed skyward. The low drag design helps it cut through the thick Earth atmosphere but gravity constantly slows it down. Arriving in Low orbit, the vehicle has lost most of it's enertia. Gravity has won and she begins the long journey around and down back to the surface.
A recovery craft already in orbit swiftly moves in, pulling the precious cargo containers bound for the moon from the bays on the delivery vehicle and refilling her with containers bound for Terra from Alpha Centari. Finished, the recovery vessel sets course for the intercommercial space port, the hub for Earth to beyond traffic. The delivery vehicle finally reenters the atmosphere. The drag shoot slows her decent. The main parachutes and air bags deploy allowing her to splash down gently in the Atlantic Ocean where she is recovered for reuse.
The picture below is an example of how I see the space containers. This example is the maximum load for a standard container. The white areas are just support for the massive load in the middle, a solid block of aluminum maybe. All containers will fit this general lay out so they can easily be stacked on Earth and in space and fit into the delivery vehicles. No matter what type of container is being launched, the frame part will more or less remain the same so all designs will have to fit within it's limits. Some containers may be intended to launch from Earth and then travel to another Earth where it is flown down by a special drop ship. Some containers may be loaded with the cargo modules from shuttles which on the end are the same size but are only 1/10 as long as the cargo pictured. Some containers could even be designed to be modules of a space station, or even the future version of a Martian mobile home.
I'm hoping I can grow a whole new concept of space travel for at least myself starting with this simple design.
(The guy standing there is another WIP I stopped working on a while back. He fits into my new universe so I may have to finish him)
I guess I've spent too much time reading the atomic rocket page over the last fiew days. I'm starting to form a new picture in my head of what the far future of space flight looks like. A more realistic concept that could hold up to at least surface scrutiny.
One of the most important advances we need to make in my opinion is harnassing fusion power. Since we are only about 5 years away from prooving fusion power in a lab environment, I imagine that in 200+ years we've mastered it.
To open the door to space we have to come up with cheap and efficient ways of moving massive amounts of material from Earth's surface to low Earth orbit. I like the idea of a linear accelerator of some kind. Maybe a magnetic rail system powered by a fusion power plant that can accelerate a vehicle extremely fast and at high G. Too many G's for a human passanger to survive but perfect for launching raw materials and the like. People and more sensitive material can use the space shuttles.
I see a busy launch port busseling with trucks bringing in space containers. massive cranes load the containers onto a launch vehicle; a simple unmanned delivery system. The delivery vehicle is accelerated down the magnetic rail system which slowly curves upwards over miles of terrain. The delivery vehicle breaks the sound barrier within seconds of steady acceleration. As it leaves the rail system, the vehicle is pointed skyward. The low drag design helps it cut through the thick Earth atmosphere but gravity constantly slows it down. Arriving in Low orbit, the vehicle has lost most of it's enertia. Gravity has won and she begins the long journey around and down back to the surface.
A recovery craft already in orbit swiftly moves in, pulling the precious cargo containers bound for the moon from the bays on the delivery vehicle and refilling her with containers bound for Terra from Alpha Centari. Finished, the recovery vessel sets course for the intercommercial space port, the hub for Earth to beyond traffic. The delivery vehicle finally reenters the atmosphere. The drag shoot slows her decent. The main parachutes and air bags deploy allowing her to splash down gently in the Atlantic Ocean where she is recovered for reuse.
The picture below is an example of how I see the space containers. This example is the maximum load for a standard container. The white areas are just support for the massive load in the middle, a solid block of aluminum maybe. All containers will fit this general lay out so they can easily be stacked on Earth and in space and fit into the delivery vehicles. No matter what type of container is being launched, the frame part will more or less remain the same so all designs will have to fit within it's limits. Some containers may be intended to launch from Earth and then travel to another Earth where it is flown down by a special drop ship. Some containers may be loaded with the cargo modules from shuttles which on the end are the same size but are only 1/10 as long as the cargo pictured. Some containers could even be designed to be modules of a space station, or even the future version of a Martian mobile home.
I'm hoping I can grow a whole new concept of space travel for at least myself starting with this simple design.
(The guy standing there is another WIP I stopped working on a while back. He fits into my new universe so I may have to finish him)
Post edited by alleyviper on
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Once in orbit, the containers are removed and she is reloaded with cargo bound for Earth. Gravity pulls the vessel back to the planet. Reentering bottom first, parachutes are deployed from the nose section. Finally, air bags deploy from the bottom allowing the craft to touch down safely in the ocean where it can be recovered and reused.
Like I said, just a rough concept render. If you guys like the basic design I'll feel better about starting to work it.
In SU news, this texture alignment issue is supposedly being worked on so going to plugin UV mapping for highly curved models won't be necessary. The SU people are trying to get the texture import tool working so when it paints on a surface it retains fluid alignment vs. scrambling it all up.
Sorceress21, that would be very nice indeed
Thank you Cavebear.
WarriorPrimus, you are right. I guess if you design scifi stuff in the realm of what we consider possible today, we'll never create anything unique and original. A little imagination could take me a lot farther. For instance, kevlar is the best body armor out today. We all know that spider silk research and powered exo skeleton armor is the direction body armor tech is heading, so realistic scifi creators tend to have some kind of synthetic spider silk armor in there world. But, the guy who imagines that spider spinners are geneticly manipulated to grow into exoskeleton armor suits has a bit more original of an idea. The guy who imagines that people don't need armor because they inject your skin with a chemical that hardens it into armor gets to develop his own show lol. Anyways, thanks for the thought food. Welcome to the community.
So in my redesign I started working from the other end. I started much like yourself with the cargo containers which would be loaded into the thing, and how they are in turn loaded onto the shuttle.
So I spent a bit of time trawling the net and thinking about the containers, which again much like your I wanted to have a realist value to them.
In the end I ended up deciding that the current international cargo container made a lot of sense.
It's modular, has a standard sizes, and most importantly while cheep to produce, it's also easy to alter the given needs. IE this one needs power, but this one is just a big box.
They also have all the basic stuff you might need a container to have. For example I thought up a couple of ways to lock container in place, but nothing works better than a simple hole in the frame which lines up with a pin on the deck, truck tray, crane lift etc.
Now I'm not saying your design is bad or anything, far from it, I whole heartily support anyone who wants to make realistic designs. What I am saying is learn from real engineers. Look at what they have already built and ask why is it like that. Then consider your design process and apply the same questions.
For example you have a orbital booster which is loaded with containers......how was it loaded? While it's on the planet, stuff has to be lifted into place somehow. If this is going to be common practice, then it has to be easy to do. So if as in my case they are crane lifted. Where does the crane lock onto the container? Does it get lifted life a fork lift, or hung from a cable?
What sort of features are there to make sure things are in the right place? Does a crewman line them up as they are put into the booster, is there a pressure sensor and a deadman switch so that a hatch won't close until the container is in the right place?
Depending on where you live, go and check out just how a real container is loaded or unloaded.
Better designs come from better understanding.
Then comes the real test of your design skills. Show the design to someone who doesn't give a toss about Sci-fi and ask them what it is. If they say it looks like a shipped container, you've hit gold.
Anyway good luck with the project what you have so far is cool. Keep working at it. So we have more realistic Science Fiction and a little less Space Fantasy fiction.
Ive been invited over to Colorado to the Google Sketchup Offices so hopefully ill be able to find out when all the lovely new plugins will be coming out as the guys who write the ruby scripts will be there also, there is supposedly a UV mapping one in the works due for release this year??!?!?!?!
You lucky guy! It's nice to see that they recognize some of the talent out here using their product :cool:
Erm you might be interested in this for UV mapping it works with native .skp files im told, im yet to test it myself but ive heard it does from a credible source!
http://www.righthemisphere.com/products/dp3d/Deep3D_UV/index.html