112 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
------------
|
||
Anarchy Inc. Proudly Presents...
|
||
------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Concept of Space Travel.
|
||
|
||
by: Lord Omega
|
||
|
||
|
||
Space, the final frontier. But how do we get to it? We've got the shuttle,
|
||
we've got satelites orbiting the earth, but we don't have any way to really get
|
||
out into space. This is a problem. There is no way that earth can remain the
|
||
only home of man with a population growing as fast as ours. We must find other
|
||
planets to live on.
|
||
|
||
But how?
|
||
|
||
Chapter 1: Getting off the ground.
|
||
|
||
Ok, now we're going to build a interstellar cruiser. It's gotta be built in
|
||
orbit, because once we get this thing as massive as we'll need it, it will be
|
||
too big to launch. Also if we build it in orbit, we don't have to worry about
|
||
aerodynamics, because it will never go through atmosphere. The parts will be
|
||
shipped up there by shuttle trips, and be assembled by people with practice in
|
||
zero gravity. That is the hard part. We don't have many real experts on zero
|
||
gravity, and it will probably take quite a bit to train them correctly. But
|
||
suppose we do, and the cruiser gets built. How much did that just cost?
|
||
Arrgh.. quite alot if you include fuel for the shuttle trips carrying all that
|
||
damn metal and such up to the ship. We better hope for a different way.
|
||
|
||
How bout the asteroids? The're mostly metals, and they should be able to do
|
||
the job fine. Main problem here is that they're the best way to build the
|
||
cruiser, but you need the cruiser to get to the asteroids. The asteroids would
|
||
make a good base for starship construction if we could just get an experienced
|
||
construction team up there. Time to re-design shuttles to go there and back.
|
||
Maybe after all this time, we finally get a construction base set up on Ceres.
|
||
(Ceres is one of the largest asteroids. It would be one of the best choices for
|
||
the base.) Ceres has been hollowed out, and enlarged somewhat like a balloon by
|
||
heating it, spinning it fast, and setting off explosions inside of it. This
|
||
will give us a base large enough for anything we might want to do. We've got
|
||
the asteroid spinning in order to create one gravity of centrifugal force, and
|
||
life inside would be great. Imagine, no bugs, snakes, or anything that you
|
||
might hate. Other shuttles now use Ceres for a base, and go back and forth in
|
||
the asteroids looking for particularly rich rocks. On Ceres we'll need a
|
||
complete system to smelt the ore, turn it into the parts we'll need for the
|
||
ship, and put it all together. Undoubtedly we'd need more than just metals.
|
||
Plastics, electronics, and other things we couldn't get up there, would be
|
||
imported from earth.
|
||
|
||
Chapter 2: Food and stuff.
|
||
|
||
Bit of a problem here. We're quite a way away from earth, and what's there to
|
||
eat? What's there to drink? What's there to breathe? These can easily be
|
||
solved. I'm sure that it won't be long before our great gene splicing labs
|
||
create a form of algae that people can eat, and will multiply very quickly.
|
||
Algae already multiplies fast, and it would be an ideal food source. It's also
|
||
an ideal air source. The used air, now mostly CO2, Can be run through the food
|
||
rooms, and the algae will thrive on this, giving us oxygen at the same time.
|
||
For storage, i'm sure that we can cut down the amount of nitrogen that the
|
||
Cerians will breathe. Nitrogen isn't really breathed anyway, and there could be
|
||
enough nitrogen for the plants in their hydroponic garden.
|
||
|
||
Water is a little more difficult tho. Water can't be dehydrated, or breeded
|
||
or anything like that. It has to be shipped up there in bulk. Renewal systems
|
||
inside the Cerian complex could keep the water going for quite a while if you
|
||
aren't squeamish about drinking repurified water. Also, there may be ice in the
|
||
asteroids, and there certainly is orbiting Saturn in the form of rings. That
|
||
could be shipped in to Ceres also.
|
||
|
||
Medicines would be a bit difficult. The good side of that is that a hell of
|
||
alot less people would be ill. Most of the harmful germs might be kept out of
|
||
the system, and there would be low gravity for anyone with heart problems.
|
||
Those are just two examples, but there will be alot more methods of dealing with
|
||
illness in Ceres.
|
||
|
||
Chapter 3: Power
|
||
|
||
This is an easy chapter. At Ceres, it would be very easy to use solar power
|
||
or put a nuclear generator on a nearby asteroid and beam the power to Ceres via
|
||
microwave. The starships would have to be very big to use nuclear power, but it
|
||
would work. Actually, the greatest thing that could possibly happen would be
|
||
the invention of a total conversion device. Something that could completely
|
||
convert matter to energy. That way, we could dump in any old garbage, and not
|
||
much would be needed to power the station for a long long time. But, nobody has
|
||
discovered a way to do it yet...
|
||
|
||
Chapter 4: Who's going?
|
||
|
||
This is somewhat important. Who would be picked as someone to work on Ceres?
|
||
More than likely it would be someone who not only is the best at his skill, but
|
||
is also athletic. It's going to be a bit of trouble for most people to get used
|
||
to zero gravity, and someone who has taken alot of gynmastics might do better
|
||
while learning. Also needed would be people in perfect health. We wouldn't
|
||
want anyone to have any serious problems that far away from their family
|
||
doctor...
|
||
|
||
Chapter 5: Conclusion.
|
||
|
||
I hope this has been an informative as well as enjoyable little text for you.
|
||
Space travel and exploration is something that I believe is very necessary. As
|
||
Larry Niven once wrote, "We need to explore and colonize other planets. Earth
|
||
is too small a basket for man to keep all it's eggs in."
|
||
|
||
Sources of good reading material:
|
||
|
||
Tales of Known Space, by Larry Niven
|
||
All the Myriad Ways, by Larry Niven
|
||
The Martian Way, by Isaac Asimov
|
||
2001, A Space Oddessy, by Arthur C. Clarke
|
||
Call The Works BBS - 1600+ Textfiles! - [914]/238-8195 - 300/1200 - Always Open
|
||
|