promoting this out of my FailBook comments just because

( Read more... )

goddammit.
… we can have a station at L2 behind Mercury and still have a wide variety of orbits available. Which is good because I don't know how else we can do a fixed collection point.

I really should know better.

If we're really going to depend on power satellite orbits following the Kepler rules, then we need to keep them far away from any ( Read more... )

(you'll want to read about solar power satellites first, where we cover all of the sensible stuff)
On Dyson Spheres and the other ridiculous things truly advanced civilizations will be doing with all of their free time

I should note that the scenario that I fleshed out in the previous post, i.e., having a cloud of independently orbiting power ( Read more... )

After my previous forays into the question of How to do Solar Power Satellites Right, here and here, there seem to yet more ways to simplify the math and get a better sense of the design space. Very annoying.

In particular, that WTF/4A energy flux formula is not, in fact, the final word on simplifying and, it seems, we can have a station at ( Read more... )

(continued from here)
So, now what?
Intergalactic Travel

This is where we get full-on, batshit crazy. (You knew this was coming, right?)

Quick reminder in case you forgot or didn't know: M31, i.e., item #31 on comet enthusiast Charles Messier's list of things that annoyed the shit out of him because they weren't actual comets, ( Read more... )

(as I was saying in my tech wish list,)
To put some actual numbers on this, if we have the satellites grazing the sun (1 million km out)

So, this was all based on this theory that I had that there'd be a point to putting solar power satellites in close to the sun, that having them dive through the corona for a few hours is what you want. (I've ( Read more... )

(galactic empire continued from here)
Some Vaguely Actual Costs

Here, have a wall of numbers:
Shipboard Time (aY)Distance*
for acc+dec
(aLY)System Time (aY)Mass Cost Ratio acc+decper aLY* of
coastingacc+decper aLY* of
coastingacc+decaccdecrocket 2.55/8 1.78 3.20 7/6 3.20 2.490.71 11 3.08/17 2.70 4.2611/10 4.26 3.480.78 19 3.55/14 3.93 5.5817/ ( Read more... )

(galactic empire, continued from here)
The Colonization Arena

So to recap, we've let loose these self-replicating explorer-cockroaches to visit everything that can possibly be visited, and there will be this sphere expanding at 1/100 lightspeed with us at least vaguely in the middle of it. Everywhere in the interior they're going to be building ( Read more... )

(continued from here)
How exploration will work

First: the explorer probes will need to be slow. This is a side-effect of how stupid rockets are. Because in the case where you're arriving at a system for the first time, rockets will be the only alternative for slowing down, you'll need exponential amounts of fuel for that, and since the ( Read more... )

(continued from here; yes I did a bit of georgelucasing; original of that last post was way too long, sorry)
Technology Requirements/Assumptions

Given that we won't have Warp Drive/etc, what are we actually going to need/have in order to be able to get places? Or, rather, what's the best we're going to be able to do, sticking to known or at-least ( Read more... )