Re: (TFT) Space travel - galaxy sized dyson spheres.

[Jim Kundert <gypsycomet@gmail.com>]

Skrith, but otherwise, yep.

FWIW, the original idea of the Dyson "Sphere" was not solid, but what
is now often refered to as a Dyson Swarm.  Many plates, etc all
orbiting (if capable of that) or under powered paths that, together,
intercept all (or the vast majority) of the output of a sun.

The need to stripmine a system and several of its neighbors for the
material is still there, but the silly materials are much less
necessary.  You aren't building a 30 million mile long suspension
bridge, after all, just a whole lot of "normal" macro-engineering
solar collectors.  The ones also built as habitats are still going to
be gigantic.


On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 1:38 AM, Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca> wrote:
> Hi all,
>  The Ringworld was built out of 'Skree' (if I
> remember the name correctly) which is an
> embarrassingly tough material.  Any culture
> that wants to build a galaxy sized dyson sphere
> better have several, impossible by our standards,
> tricks up their sleeves or they would likely
> conclude that doing so would be silly.
>
>  And we can't have that!  It would spoil our
> speculation!
>
>  ;-)
>
>  Warm regards, Rick.
>
> On Mon, 2011-05-12 at 14:09 -0800, PvK wrote:
>> Yes, the Wiki is correct that gravitational forces would cancel. I think you are right about the unevenness of solar wind, so there would need to be a way to balance all that. But if you can get the darn thing there in the first place, then I doubt that station-keeping is going to be a tough engineering problem for someone who has solved the construction problem. Not to mention for someone who is so bored that they are doing something so inefficient as making a Dyson Sphere.
>>
>> --- denisdesharnais@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Assuming it's actually a perfect sphere, and was perfectly placed, wouldn't
>> gravitiational effects cancel?  I think solar wind doesn't blow equally
>> hard in all directions all the time, so the reduced surface-area of a net
>> would be better.
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