Well of Souls Forums

Today I discovered Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd. They are working on updated 1960s spaceplane design concepts, using existing aerospace technologies. A two-man SSTO of theirs called Ascender could be operational before Skylon. Ascender : http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/ascender/images/ascend...

I'm sad that we just glanced over Skylon with a few links. Has everything about it already been said on those sites or something? Skylon would look awesome with a cockpit at the front, though obviously that space is needed for propellant and fuel. It will be rated capable of carrying people though, ...

Ah.

If they don't have SABRE engines, then humanity is already doomed.

Does the TCA have a Single Stage To Orbit spaceplane or shuttle?

If so, do you have any drawings?

GeoModder wrote:I'm betting the scrap metal the US is supplying China with comes from the dismantling of US Navy ships.
I'm also betting if the US had a sufficiently cheap way to reuse said scrap metal, they would do so.

"The capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them from."
- Joseph Stalin

Basically, I'd prefer living under the TCA to living under the Federation. Which would you most prefer to living under the Loroi Union? or if that's your first choice, who's second? Er.... what? As I've said before, the Loroi "arn't so bad once you get to know them". I don't see why you think I'd b...

Well, for a start, the Star Trek 'verse isn't quite as utopian as it seems. Sure, they have powerful medical technology, but despite that they still can't prevent aging. Sure, they have a strong belief in ethics... but their ethics [at least by the TNG era] are very questionable. Sure, they have spa...

As Arioch mentioned though, Saturn's magnetosphere causes more problems than it solves for Titan.

Among other things, you'd need to drop an ungodly number of asteroids onto Mars to increase the mass [likely throwing away what atmosphere it does have in the process] until it gains the 90% Earth's mass that it would need to hold 1 bar of atmospheric pressure. Many of the earliest asteroids to rea...

... or it COULD be that Arioch was going to have Beryll go on a long tirade about whatever Alex was talking about, realised that it was a wall of text of horrific proportions, said "oh god what have i done", rubbed it all out then just wrote "Don't say that!" as a reminder that he needs to come up w...

Mars' problem is twofold. It' volcanically dead, meaning it doesn't produce an atmosphere by itself, and it has low gravity, meaning it just can't hold a thick atmosphere to itself. A lot of gas would just float off into space. Industrialising Mars would help by warming it up, but I'm fairly sure 1 ...

I'm pretty sure no one would bother. A gun is ranged, and in close-quarters combat, you might as well use a bayonet. If you can make a laser small enough to fit in your hand, why would you confine it to sabre length?

I was surprised by their design when I first read Outsider because they are eerily similar to my own. I'm not accusing Arioch of anything, since Outsider was started well before I started drawing spacecraft. It's just wierd. One of mine: http://i.cubeupload.com/ZKlQkZ.png The big differences are in ...

'Freeman'. Exactly the right name for a badass spacecraft that uses advanced weapons to play whack-an-alien with. "The right ship in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world." How would the Science team add on crowbar based weapons? A gravity gun, obviously. They pick up the crowbar...

'Freeman'. Exactly the right name for a badass spacecraft that uses advanced weapons to play whack-an-alien with.

Plus, if you completely vent the atmosphere, and remove both fuel and life support materials [water and such] then you can prevent rusting, corrosion and oxidation of the spacecraft's materials. It would last a lot longer in mothball that way.

Ah. It just looked like they were on a 45* angle when I looked at it earlier. I couldn't get figures on the actual angle of the Space Shuttle engines, other than that they gimbal by +/- 10*. After a more thorough look at the drawing, I'd say that the vector of thrust probably does go through the cen...

Out of interest, why do the thrusters on the Highland not point through the centre of mass? The way they're pointed, they should flip end over end when they fire.

Suederwind wrote:Wow... Nice work Arioch!
So we are going from a "as happy as you can get" Beryl, to a mildly annoyed one and reach a angry one in only one page?

Beware The Nice Ones.

Its engines are designed for high-efficiency so it can get the most out of an interplanetary burn. It's slower than the larger TCA spacecraft.

I haven't tried drawing the canon ships, no. It might be interesting trying to work out what they look like just from their silhouettes though.