Inexplicable Spaceman

He/Him | 21 | Call me Harlan | Massive fan of all things Science Fiction | Broadly in favour of Humans

[microsff]

"Why did you come to this time? To warn us?"

The time traveler laughed. "Why would anyone listen to me?"

"You're from our future-"

"No, I'm from a different timeline, a different future. I'm a refugee."

"To here? Now?"

"It looks fucked right now, but this is the timeline that pulls through."

[spaced-out-reader]

I might just pin this one to my blog for a while.

[markingthemannequin]

dedicated to all rosetta fans outta here

[70sscifiart]

For Sci-Fi Cutaway Saturday: Davis Meltzer's depiction of an underwater base.

[krjpalmer]

ANALOG Computing June 1985

Along with its type-in games and other programs, this issue's editorial noted how programmers around the magazine would soon be exhausted from work on the Atari 520 ST they'd just received. It noted how "an Atari official asked us to state, in writing," why they needed an ST rather than "some other companies waiting to do software development, vital to the success of the machine," and explained "the question was a formality" and ANALOG would pass on what it had learned to "the hardened hacker and the neophyte purchaser."

[balrog-slayer66]

Double Zeta's high mega cannon. Illustration by Kazuhisa Kondo

[whirligig-girl]

The Boiling Beast II nears close approach of Ember, the innermost planet of the Zwo-Nmu system. Its crew of slimegirl astronauts will record careful measurements of the magnetic field, exospheric spectrum, atmosphere probes, and weather patterns on their multiple passes by the planet, before using it as a gravity slingshot to get back to Omen and then safely back home to Gymnome.

Ember is a hot ice giant, so named for its red appearance when seen in the skies of Gymnome, due to how low in the sky it is usually seen.

Telescopic observations of the planet Ember are difficult because it is always close to Zwo-Nmu (the sun), which makes it dangerous to aim near with normal instruments. When Zwo-Nmu sets, Ember is not far behind, and by that time it's so low in the sky as to be spoiled by the effects of rayleigh scattering, atmospheric dispersion, and atmospheric turbulence.

The Boiling Beast 1A and 1B were twin biorobotic probes utilizing bio-neural circuitry (see footnote 1), mostly designed to test the sunshade system for Boiling Beast II. 1A was a stellar probe, and 1B actually made flybys of Ember.

The planet's distance from its star is less than a third of the distance between the Sun and Mercury. The spacecraft must be protected from the instellation by a large sunshield, which keeps almost the entire spacecraft in its shadow. Additional cooling is provided by heat radiators on the far end of the vessel, near the solar powerplant.

The solar powerplant comprises a liquid mercury turbine powered by eight parabolic reflectors. These extend past the sunshield at first, but as the spacecraft gets closer and closer to the Sun, the reflectors are retracted one by one. During the closest approaches to the Sun, even the last reflector is retracted, and the vessel must run on battery power only.

On Gymnome, a computer is a job that a person can do extremely well. As a result digital machine computers are trailing behind compared to human technological development, but with the proper training a gymnomi computer can do far better than any machine computer. Machine computers on Gymnome come in two types: electronic, and bio-neural. Electronic computers don't scale down well, but eventually are developed into institutional supercomputers which powered the information age on Gymnome. Bio-neural circuitry is used for miniaturization of robotics, at the expense of requiring expensive and bulky support equipment to keep the organism alive. Robotic space probes on Gymnome often rely on bio-neural circuitry when analog automation is not up to the task. The Boiling Beast 1 probes probably could have used analog automation, but the bio-neural circuitry was being used as a gymnomi life support analog.

[silverslipstream]

On a cliff-edge over Saturn, two duelists prowl in the darkness. They have not been here long. A few days. One boosting out of the gravity well, the other heading feet-first into it. Both are camouflaged; for days there is nothing to see but the pale Sun and the Saturn system itself, a gravitational chandelier basking in the perpetual dusklight. The challenger is a seasoned veteran, born during a time of glory. Its hull is old, functional, heavily overhauled to fit a new kind of war. Developments have remained as oversized extensions on the hull, the fusion drive and deep-space radar system misshapen grafts onto the contours of its skin. Its drive burned for four long, undetectable months to get here. The challenger is alone, but not afraid. The sigil emblazoned across its radiators bares its intent: united. By any means. The defender is new in every sense of the word. Its hull is a work of art and physics in perfect unison, a sculpture of the future. Here, the fusion drive is smaller, sleeker, perfectly incorporated, punching outward into deep space at a comfortable one-g. Fresh death is still registered in its combat logs. It scours its surroundings with practised sweeps, an apex predator devoted solely to the hunt. Its only weakness? It has never known defeat. In the silence—a shift, a rushing stream, a snapping twig—the duellists lock eyes. Radar sensors howl bloody murder into the black, their calculations refined, their conclusions confirmed. Supercomputers send the requisite commands, redirect power, prime their ships’ fusion drives. Attitude-control systems hurl a corona of hydrazine outwards, shedding fuel from the dancing hulls. Defensive protocols jitter along the endless miles of cable beneath their armoured skins. Slowly, the duelists face each other. Attack formation. Electromagnetic arrays in the ignition chamber chime their readiness, theirs the invisible fists clenched around the heart of a star. The flames are lit—then a moment of stilted, staggering silence. The universe takes a breath.

Against the autumn storms of Saturn’s atmosphere, two temporary stars blink to life.

[whirligig-girl]

One lineage of Gymnomi Slime crew capsules and their associated launch vehicles.

The one on the left is a missile with the bomb replaced with a scientific package--essentially a sounding rocket. It is included here for comparison, and also because one of the scientists put in a little bit of their goo to see how it'd fare, so it is a special case of being one of the few space vehicles to carry a non-integer number of crew.

The next one is the first true spacecraft (of this lineage anyway), a vehicle that could just barely make Low Gymnome Orbit with its payload.

After that is the first functional spacecraft, used for early experiments in space habitability, rendezvous and docking, and even saw use in this particular space program's first space station, and flew by Ubbi, Gymnome's tiny, invisible-in-the-night-sky natural satellite asteroid.

The final one was from the 2320s to the 2350s the workhorse of this space program. They finally figured out how to light second stage engines in the air, allowing them to move away from boosters, and the payload capacity was increased to provide an inflatable Orbital Module and a larger Service Module.

The big dishes on each of the last two capsules are solar mercury-boilers for power generation.

[h2rtkos]

Updated my solar system. You'll have to pry Papyrus from my cold, dead hands

[spaced-out-reader]

I respect the audacity

[fantasy-things-and-such]

Frontline: The SNV victoria

The story of Frontline revolves around the Enforcers: a group of Genetically-engineered, pseudo-clone soldires created by the Directorate of Janus's councilors- who I will cover in a different post. this post is dedicated to my brainchild and absolute behemoth of a Megastructure, the SNV Victoria. This post is subject to a bit of change after i post it, when i inevitably realize i made some kind of mistake somwhere.

THIS POST IS NOT STANDALONE!! i have to use words and terms I made up that i can't jam into this one and will go in a seperate post, which will go on my masterpost. this is hard sci-fi, which may not be for everyone! I WILL be using numbers like 70 trillion and you MAY not be able to comprehend how many goddamn things that is. here be dragons!

The SNV Victoria

A Massive megastructure designed to deliver powerful PDS, fleet support, battlefield control and ground invasion forces through the use of artificial gestation chambers, The Victoria is the mobile home base of the Enforcers- the Directorate's elite army. 6,000 miles from top to bottom, 4000 miles in diameter at it’s widest point, the SNV victoria is comprable in size to a small exoplanet. importantly, however, upwards of 90% of the Victoria's volume as suggested by those measurments is empty void.

Despite this, the Victoria is inhabited, populated and manned by roughly 70-80 trillion enforcers- around half being Artificers responsible for upkeep, intelligence, repair, and logistics. The victoria is designed to take up a massive amount of space- featuring a central spire which contains much of the Victoria’s vital systems under heavy shielding and redundant space- and Two layers of rings: a smaller, inner ring and a larger, outer ring- provide stacked housing, depots, foundries, armories, hanger bays, farms, and other spaces.

Dimensions

The central spire stands 6000 miles in height from top to bottom with only about ~700miles being a central core, with 4000 miles of length being a spire that tapers as it ascends, and 1000 miles being a dome on the underside. the assymetry of the Victoria's design is purposeful- the spire is a tool of intimidation, while the Outer ring protects the core of the Victoria and provides a geometric "shadow" for its escort fleets- and other ally fleets which may be present.

The inner ring has 300 miles of space separating it from the central spire(outside of spire to inside of ring). The inner ring is 30 miles thick, 80 miles high, and from the inner ring, outer edge to the outer ring, inner edge, there is a roughly 1,200 mile gap. The outer ring itself is 250 miles high and 80 miles thick.

What is where- a loose description of the distribution of stuff in the Victoria

The upper spire holds long-range sensors, command hubs, spinal ordinances and launch control sites that require and benefit greatly from the unobstructed view such as command and leadership hubs. The outer ring bristles with close-to-medium range weapons, PD, and a few select long range heavy weapons.the outer ring contains agricultural and residential hubs to maintain the enforcers who are stationed there full-time in addition to hanger bays and docks for various strike craft and ship upkeep.

The Core and inner ring house bulk of the housing, farming, and important infrastructure. Major internal foundries, armories, and the Gene engineering bays exist deep within the core structure, in the shadow of the outer ring- well shielded and protected from attack. The majority of food for the spire and dome are shipped from here as well.

lastly, the underside dome contains a few weapons designed for precision orbital bombardment and the Drop Channels for quick orbital insertion drop pods- for when troops need to hit land fast and hit hard. it houses many infermaries, supply depots and a few bays for returning pods and shuttles.

45% of enforcers live inside the inner ring and core structure. 20% live in the outer ring, 15% in the underside dome and a further 15% in the central spire.

The Victoria is the crown jewel of Directorate engineering. it dominates its space in a battlefield as a indomnitable mobile fortress. a status of the Directorate- and the Enforcers- power. To lose it would be devastating- and so the Victoria is always accompanied by a Dreadnout- a Directorate instrument of war- and it's compliment escort. This ensures that the Victoria and its fleet will hold out until reinforcements inevitably arrive.

Some tags under the line

@horlahreader1 You wanted to be tagged @the-ellia-west @angst-is-love-angst-is-life hope you dont mind you two 0.0

[spyglassrealms]

Jupiter is the fifth and largest planet in the solar system: a cold and violent world bearing enormous cyclones several times larger than its own moons and overwhelmingly potent radiation belts within its magnetic field. In addition to hundreds of minor moons scattered across its vast gravity well (the Jovian Sphere), the gas giant also has four airless planetoid moons (called the Galileans): Io, a sulfur-laden, radiation-scoured, and highly volcanic rocky world; Europa, a frozen world hiding a vast, life-filled water ocean between its icy crust and iron-silicate core; Ganymede, the only moon in the system with a natural magnetic field; and Callisto, a deeply scarred and tidally-locked body well outside the main radiation belts.

While living on the planet itself is impossible for a variety of reasons, its vast gravity well (called the Jovian Sphere or Jovian System) is well-populated. Its four largest moons, as well as numerous minor moons, are collectively inhabited by over half a billion people under the banner of the Jovian System Federation —among the most influential sovereign powers in the Sol system. First established as a United Nations Territory in the early 2100s, human presence over Jupiter grew steadily beyond its original handful of scattered science outposts as the need for self-sustained local industry increased. The combined provisional governments of the four major moons, as well as numerous minor ones, soon filed for independence from direct UN administration and formed the JSF: a federal body presiding over the administration of local space, industry regulation, trade agreements, social welfare, and other matters outside the scope of local governments.

Representation of Jovians is organized into delegations from each of the four major moons (Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io), plus a delegation for the Jupiter Ring Territories (the minor bodies and stations inside the orbit of Callisto) and the Outer Jovian Territories (the minor bodies and stations outside the orbit of Callisto). These representatives meet regularly in the Jovian Federal Senate in Valhalla City, on Callisto, to deliberate on matters of Jovian-wide importance.

Jupiter’s biggest export of the present day is energy, but not by way of fusion power. Though Jupiter is a bountiful source of both hydrogen and helium, its intense gravity well makes extracting resources from the planet itself quite a challenge even for fusion torch-scoops. Instead, the energy is extracted by passive induction stations on Io that generate massive electrical currents as they pass through the powerful magnetic field of the stormy giant. The currents are used to power enormous, precisely-calibrated laser beaming arrays that transmit energy across the system. Ships are directed to stay far away from the beam-paths of the Zeus Array, as even slightly grazing one will have disastrous consequences and Sol System Traffic Control would prefer to not need to clean up any divine smitings.

photobash of a future Jupiter and its moons plus their flags, created for my hard science fiction setting Astra Planeta. it is SO HARD to get a shot of all four Galilean moons together with Jupiter! I did what I could to balance things out but the difference in scale and distances between the objects put some serious limits on the composition. done using assets from Space Engine.

[thiscat456]

hard sci fi go brrrrrr

so something i want to talk about is hard sci-fi more specifically the orion's arm universe project the orion's arm universe project or orion's arm for short or OAUP is a hard sci fi worldbuilding project that began in the year 2000 and is running for 25 years

the world revolves around the history culture and anything else related the humanity and his volume of the galexy the terragen sphere the timeline begins kinda now with humanity returning to the moon to colonize it and then colonizing other celestial bodies

the story continues for thousands of years into the future where sophonts live on the millions of star systems sorry if it sounds not well structured the thing is orion's arm is so big you can really explain it shortly or even understand it i leave here the link to the website along with some images

[souperluminal]

05.27 - Curvature

[spyglassrealms]

This time, we'll get it right. With Mars we'll atone; we'll go beyond atonement. We, who nearly killed our living world, will take this cold dead world and breathe life into it. Mars, god of war and rage and death, turned to Eden in time and toil. With Mars, we rejoice that the human miracle has mitosed into a new pair of cells, adjacent to and in harmony with the other, but each of them free and whole. — "Plowshare" by an anonymous author, 2336 C.E.

Mars is a small, dusty, rust-colored world, fourth order in the Sol system, which bears the second-oldest continuous human presence beyond Earth (the oldest, of course, being Luna.) Over the last several hundred years, humankind has meticulously crafted the once barren, near-airless desert of Mars into the beginnings of a garden world full of terragenid life.

At only a third the physical size of its neighbor Earth and barely 11% as massive, Mars is quite a small terrestrial planet. It has an ocean to land area considerably smaller than Earth (roughly 50% water as opposed to Earth's 70%) and a moderately thinner atmosphere, meaning much of the highland regions remain cold, dry, and uninhabitable. Its tides are nearly nonexistent thanks to its two tiny asteroidal moons, Phobos and Deimos, and its natural magnetic field is long gone. But despite the challenges, Mars is a shining example of the terraforming process’ benefits. After centuries of slow, careful tending the red planet has started to become blue and green just like the human homeworld: its atmosphere is breathable, its weather is balmy, its seas are calm, and the lowlands are now teeming with terragenid flora and fauna that have been genetically modified to thrive in the uniquely Martian environment.

Mars’ population, some 2.4 billion strong, forms a rich culture built off the foundations of the original melting-pot inhabitants, with a strong emphasis on hard work and civic duty. The planet is governed in its entirety by the People’s Republic of Mars, which is actually more akin to a eudemocracy facilitated by Mars’ comprehensive satellite communication network. Thanks in part to this new evolution of social organization, Mars (like the vast majority of the UNH) has achieved a near-utopic post-scarcity civilization.

The red planet has come a long way since its independence in 2210 CE, and indeed even further since the first human landing in 2018. Mars takes great pride in its status as one of the oldest Earth-independent nations in all of human space.

been a while since the last entry in the Worlds of Sol series, huh? photobash of a future Mars and its biosphere plus their flags, created for my hard science fiction setting Astra Planeta. this one was not made with SpaceEngine; I made the maps based on NASA imagery and compiled the layers in Map To Globe.

[spyglassrealms]

The solar asteroid belt, typically shortened to the Sol Belt or simply the Belt, is an orbital band between Mars and Jupiter in the Sol system filled with leftover protoplanetary debris. Roughly half of the Belt's mass (just 4% the mass of Luna) is contained in the five largest bodies: Ceres (left), Vesta (right), Pallas, Hygiea, and Interamnia. The various ports of the Belt are major industrial hubs as well as common stopovers for flights between the inner and outer system; the expanses of space between the asteroids are a flurry of spaceflight activity.

Of the nearly three million documented main belt objects, only a small handful are inhabited. The majority of these inhabited objects make up the 52 United States of the Solar Belt. Founded with the independence of Ceres and Vesta from UN administration in 2205, the USSB is among the oldest and most prosperous nations in the Sol system. The settlement of the Sol Belt was a very patchwork affair, accomplished over several centuries by an assortment of organizations for one key reason: resources. With so much raw material floating haphazardly between Mars and Jupiter, its inevitable utilization had been looming more or less since the dawn of interplanetary human spaceflight.

Though still sparsely populated at a mere 135 million people spread across under a hundred major bodies, the USSB is the industrial powerhouse of the system and a hotbed of engineering advancement. This is especially true of its capital city, Proserpina: a compound metropolitan area located in Ceres' Kerwan Basin which is more than four times larger than the city of Beijing. The Belt is also a notable contributor to the climate stabilization projects on Earth and the Martian terraforming program, supplying both with billions of tons of olivine over the last several centuries to sequester atmospheric carbon in accelerated weathering depots. Even after hundreds of years, mining is still the primary industry of the Belt, and likely will be until its trove is exhausted.

another post in the series? so soon? you'd better believe it! photobash of a future Ceres and Vesta, plus their flags, created for my hard science fiction setting Astra Planeta. done using assets from Space Engine.

[hyperapsis]

WIP of a spacecraft from my own little world (not skilled enough yet in Blender to fully bring it to life). The red bands are supposed to be magnetic droplet radiators for heat management. Still gotta do texturing and all that :)

[quinn10121012]

An alternate take on the patrol ship from my last post…