Fw: starship-design: Planetary Landing

["L. Clayton Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

For those of you who get this twice, I apologize. I sent it to a group
listing the first time rather than to the automailer.


>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bjorn Nilsson <f96bni@student.tdb.uu.se>
>To: Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>
>Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu <starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu>
>Date: Saturday, June 06, 1998 9:47 AM
>Subject: Re: starship-design: Planetary Landing
>
>
>>On Fri, 5 Jun 1998, Steve VanDevender wrote:
>>
>>> Jonathan J Jay writes:
>>>  > You wrote:
>>>  >
>
>
>SNIP
>
>>
>>Personally I think ST:voyager is one of the best Science FICTION series
>>there is....
>>
>>
>>Anyway, I agree that making the ENTIRE ship landable is probably a bit
>>unneccesary, However the non-fuel/engine areas of our colony ship is
>>probably gonna contain so much hardware (maintenance eq, Life support
>>systems, workshops, etc, etc) that you probably will wanna make those
>>parts such that it is at least posible to do a "controlled crash" of those
>>parts of the ship...
>>
>>Personnally, I'd design any 'one-way' (such as the colony ship) ship such
>>that once we're in the target star system, you jettison the parts of the
>>ship wich holds the engines/fuel for interstellar travel!
>>
>
>
>Unless you are planning on giving up access to space, why don't you just
>leave the ship in orbit as the nucleus of your first space colony. As far
as
>getting large amounts of cargo one way to the surface, its a no brainer.
>Inflatable re-entry pods can be made in all sizes and shapes. You could
drop
>entire pre-built factories housing, etc. from orbit if you wanted to.
>
>For that matter, you could mine the materials and build everything you need
>for the surface colony in orbit and then drop it. For once the economics
>work out better for the space colony. We would end up with a thriving space
>borne industrial base and a planet without massive pollution....hmmm.
>
>Lee
>