Rakaydos

Metamaterials, "flat atom" artificial atomic properties, "island of stability" elements, multi- shell bond chemistry... There's still room for exotic materials.

Orbital Rings are useful for this. Orbital rings are suspended by a stream of pellets/particals/plasma that are deflected by the ring to counteract the force of gravity. Unlike a space fountain, however, this stream of... let's call it "working mass", never touches the ground below. Instead, it travels along the inside of the ring (at superorbital velocities, to generate the nessisary outward pressure) and pushes off the OPPOSITE side of the ring. This is unstable, with small inequalities gradually causing the ring to go off center and strike the planet, but it can also be far closer to a planet than a standard space elevator- it is reasonable (albet not trivial) to tether the ring to the surface from multiple directions, for stability. The ring itself, as opposed to the working mass, is stationary relative to the surface.

I've been working on a fictional universe with a similar setup... Inteligent drakes drove other races into forests, caves and narrow ravines because of the ability to drop rocks on the groundlings and scavange the carcasses. But with bows, pike cavalry, and armor, the groundlings pushed the drakes back, attacking where they needed to land to rest, until the drake's territory is mountians and cliffsides.

And yet, they proved the existence of people who would accept that kind of offer.

As I understand it, all rockets list their payload numbers to something like a 120 km circular orbit at an inclination equal to their launch site. Nobody actually goes to a 120 km orbit- there's too much drag at that altitude. This isn't just Starship marketing, that's EVERYONE's marketing. When SpaceX says 100-120 tons to a USEFUL orbit, that's them actually being honest. With that said, if you can get a tanker up quickly enough, even a 120 km orbit can be raised to something more stable, given Starship's refueling capability.

Since this has effectively become a climate thread, let me suggest a killer app: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-plan-to-recycle-waste-carbon-dioxide-co2-into-plastic Into DISPOSABLE plastic bags, straws, and packaging. Don't recycle, just throw it away- you've already done your part. The landfill becomes a carbon sequestration point.

AS far as kesseler effects are concerned, they are also in multiple shells, with a total thickness hundreds of KM deep. That's a lot of volume to miss another satellite in.

https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Free-Vorkosigan-McMaster-Bujold-ebook/dp/B005SHX1CE

Cheap flight on a wrong way Cycler. (mars-> earth cycler takes about 6 years to get back around to mars. Same for a Earth-> mars cycler going back to earth)

The problem with that, is that the two stars don't orbit the milky way at the same speed+direction. Maintain absolute momentum, and all that difference will catapult you at astronomical speeds.

Sweat, and the associated Persistence Hunter secondary traits. (Ability to focus on longer tasks, memory, visual tracking) Bipedalisim with locking knees (energy efficient overland travel and dedicated manipulation appendages) Simultaneous development of Basic Language and Cooking. (Control of fire allows more efficient digestion of Carbs, allowing the growth of a bigger braincase, allowing language, allowing knowledge of control of fire and cooking to be passed along as inherited traits)

I'm presuming that you emerge with zero relative velocity to the sun. If it's an interstellar jump, there's a decent chance you're already in orbit if absolute momentum is conserved. How long do you need to survive for?

Nah, they'll just increase the level cap to compete.

When Bridestine was selected to head NASA for the Trump administration, he was a climate change denier, continuing the trend of "worst possible picks" in the administration. Fortunately NASA was able to convince him, in about 2 days.

And that's one reason SpaceX wont touch that design with a 10' pole. Leave runway landings to Virgin or Boeing.

Can I steal other people's old Land Speed Record designs and post them here?

Once hoverslam is in the equation, lunar landings get much easier. Hovering on the moon with the same engine as on earth requires 6 times the throttling capability. Hoverslamming on the moon, for the exact same profile as on earth, requires a reduction in deceleration of less than 1 g. (5/6 of a g) If it can do a 2 g hoverslam on earth, and hover (1g) on earth, it can do a 1 1/6g hoverslam on the moon. If it can do a 3g hoverslam on earth, it can do a 2g hoverslam on the moon.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401025/pocket-rockets-pack-a-punch/

Slowpoke.jpg Starship steals from ALL the best ideas. Sea Dragon was the classic "Big dumb rocket", but SpaceX made it a "Big Smart Rocket" by combining it with the DC-X, orbital fuel depots, and the idea behind MEMS Engine Superclusters. (albet at full engine scale, not microchip scale)

Yea, I'm not sure I'd take the word of a space agency that's been cruising off the prior successes and designs of the Soviets.

If I recall the EDA video right, the problem isn't the nozzle, the problem is the combustion chamber. Aerospikes simply have a harder time getting the same combustion efficiencies and still feed an aerospike's angled nozzle, without having a combustion chamber hanging off to the side penalizing the thrust-to-area ratio.

The biggest problem with artificial gravity on the 18m starship is making sure the Intermediate Axis Therum is satisfied. Otherwise...

Fuel is cheap. You don't need a 95% ratio, you just need infrastructure to make and store fuel. "Growing it there", to return to the Hawaii metaphor. Just because porkbarrel politics didn't LET us colonize the moon in the 70s, doesn't mean it was impossible. Nixon killed Apollo Applications before he was kicked out of office, Regan gutted the Space Transport System to just the orbital shuttle portion. But SpaceX doesn't need to stretch a 6 year program to 12 years to milk all the money it can from a government contract, like Boeing. Quite the opposite- they built three prototypes and two facilities in half a year using 5% of the company resources. THAT is how you open up the solar system.

You can make and grow that stuff there. Sure, Hawaii's got flaming volcanoes wiping out half the island every few years, but what's life without a little danger.

Carved out logs tied together with vines settled the entire pacific ocean, before recorded history. You dont need a steamboat to colonize Hawaii.