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Gravity Balloons
#13
(03-07-2014, 02:47 AM)stevebowers Wrote: Most artificial worlds have dynamically supported suprashells, so they should resist buckling (so long as the orbital loops continue to work). Only very small ones wouldn't need this. Birch compared this to a balloon, by the way.

Yep, I was just looking through OA's supermundane world and artificial planet articles. I was sketching out a campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons (of all places) set on a supermundane world with Jupiter as a center.

One thing that struck me was that the diameter of the shell wasn't much larger than the diameter of the planet, and if I crunched the numbers correctly then a low density, low gravity planet like Saturn would see the shell nearly touching the planet. Drop the planetary gravity below 1G and the shell should come in contact with the planet.

And then you're back to gravity balloons, which offer the nifty ability to build really large shells (e.g., supermundane worlds) without dynamic compression beams. You'd need some active stabilization against the shifting atmosphere, like ballast weights under the shell, but buckling is a lesser concern because you have that universal gas pressure support.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
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"Everbody's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, oh, suddenly you've gone too far." -- Professor Farnsworth, Futurama
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Messages In This Thread
Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-08-2013, 08:36 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 05:49 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:25 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:27 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 07:54 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 12-19-2013, 07:15 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-21-2013, 06:19 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by JohnnyYesterday - 12-21-2013, 05:53 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-06-2014, 11:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:14 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-06-2014, 05:49 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 12:13 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:30 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-07-2014, 02:47 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 03:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 01:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Drashner1 - 11-19-2014, 02:09 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 05:54 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 07:31 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-31-2014, 04:32 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 03-25-2015, 04:01 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-25-2015, 05:42 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-27-2015, 07:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by sandcastles - 07-02-2016, 11:06 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 07-03-2016, 07:15 AM

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