Borg Mining Station

posted on December 17th, 2010, 3:37 am

At least the warp drives stand a chance.  Manipulate the "fabric of space" the right way and let it do the work for you.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 4:16 am

So, what happens when the sphere outmasses the sun that it encompasses?

posted on December 17th, 2010, 4:53 am

Then the romulans build a warbird around it.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 10:09 am

At the end of the day, you can't prove that anything is impossible. Just because we can't currently do it, doesn't mean it can't be done...

posted on December 17th, 2010, 10:36 am

There's an old saying...

'Nothing is impossible.  Merely extremely improbable.'

posted on December 17th, 2010, 11:21 am

The *really* fun bit is when the sphere (having no net gravitational force from the star it surrounds) just drifts into the star...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_swarm#Dyson_shell

posted on December 17th, 2010, 1:10 pm

Later on in that very article it says that that problem could be theoretically corrected just by added a propulsion unit to the sphere.  No problem.

TCR, you haven't actually responded to any of our arguments.  You just keep saying "It's impossible.  At least a warp drive is possible."  When we've (or at least I have) given counterarguments to both of those statements.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 3:10 pm

Does the word "gravity" mean anything.  If that sphere is built, one of two things are going to happen.

1 - The star's gravity will tear the sphere apart.
2 - The sphere's gravity will tear the star apart.

Building it would be impossible because of those two issues.  And it would require so many resources that you would have to dismantle every planet, asteroid, and commit in the solar system and every nearby solar system, and you still wouldn't have enough resources to build it.  It would also take thousands of years to build it as well.

I have explained at least the star's gravity being an issue before.  You paid no attention to it.

That wikipedia article actually gives a more practical design.  A solid sphere encompassing a star is impossible.  The spheres that are about twice the size of Jupiter would still be extremely improbable, but it would still create some gravity and resource issues.

By the way, it's actually the light from the sun that would be used to hover the stations, not the radiation.  The radiation pressure would have a negligible effect.  The light could be channeled more effectively and more efficiently to get the desired result.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 5:39 pm

I don't remember you mentioning gravity, but you didn't respond to my other points either.  I don't see why the star and sphere would have to destroy each other, though.  The sphere is equisdistant around the star, so it's gravitational effect would in effect cancel out (since the star would be pulled equally in all directions, it wouldn't move).  And that's making assumptions about the mass of the sphere and the inability of the star to withstand it.  And I don't see how the star would tear the sphere apart, either.  It doesn't tear itself apart, and you could describe the sun as being several concentric spheres with no space in between.

I said earlier that it would be ludicrously impractical to build.  But there are buildings on earth that took materials from many nations and took centuries to complete.  It's possible.  Not likely, but possible.

As I said earlier, though, in our current understanding of physics it is impossible to cross the lgiht speed barrier.  Thus it is impossible.  Our understanding of how things work could change, but you can't say something must be possible just because we could eventually invalidate our current physics system.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 6:05 pm

I responded to everything you posted and even repeated them for you.  If you choose to ignore them, that's your choice.  I will not continue this conversation!

posted on December 17th, 2010, 8:25 pm

I responded to everything you posted and even repeated them for you.  If you choose to ignore them, that's your choice.  I will not continue this conversation!

Actually, your last post (which I did respond to) was the first one to deal with gravity.  (A previous one mentioned the sphere having to orbit the star, but I responded to that as well.)  I'll admit that sometimes I make mistakes, but I think I responded to everything you said.  But you've never explained how a at-best theoretical (as in wouldn't work with modern physics) warp drive is more possible than building a big sphere (which I've explained various aspects of already as being possible).

If you don't want to continue the conversation, though, that's your prerogative.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 8:41 pm

I get it now.  I didn't give a detailed enough explanation on why I think light-speed travel is possible at all.  Sorry, I misunderstood what you wanted.

Conventional propulsion systems are not going to break the light barrier.  You need something that'll act sort of like gravity.  Gravity, theoretically, pulls on space like it's a fabric.  If we developed something to get this fabric to push on the vessel, the fabric would be doing most of the work.  There would still be an increase in mass, but theoretically, using this method, the mass increase would not be as great until you have broken the light barrier.  This link has a diagram that shows something very similar to what I'm talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive_(Star_Trek)

I would assume put the warp field that is at the rear of the ship to encompass the entire ship in an attempt to reduce latency aboard the vessel.  The field would probably alter the speed of light within the field.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 8:47 pm

the ciadan sphere isnt gonna go around a star, its going around a rock i thought. i mean whats wrong with building a metal sphere around a rock?

[Tyler]

posted on December 17th, 2010, 8:56 pm

Last edited by Tyler on December 17th, 2010, 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nothing, but they're not talking about that sphere anymore.

You could just quote relevent info instead of full page links, like this:

The warp coils create a subspace displacement field, which "warps" the space around the vessel allowing it to "ride" on a spatial distortion, and travel faster than the speed of light.

posted on December 17th, 2010, 10:00 pm

A sphere around a rock?  That sounds plausible and very likely.  But I doubt there are any plans for that right now.

Tyler:
Thanks for the tip.