TMP was the first on-screen evidence of Starfleet HQ being in San Francisco. 23rd Century Earth was never depicted in TOS and the original series gave us very little in the way of 23rd Century Earth worldbuilding or description.
Two questions about San Francisco
- Thread starter somebuddyX
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TMP was the first on-screen evidence of Starfleet HQ being in San Francisco. 23rd Century Earth was never depicted in TOS and the original series gave us very little in the way of 23rd Century Earth worldbuilding or description.
Obviously, there are trade-offs for either position, and one could write a dissertation supporting either. Beyond workplace convenience, other factors, such as environmental impact (how toxic is it to build a starship?) and material sourcing (Are you bringing resources down to the surface only to lift them up again?), will definitely play a part.
Yeah. But it seemed like a pretty major job.
If you're like me you grew up looking at books with pictures like this, which were so cool it sort of imprinted orbital construction on the brain.
I get where you're coming from and I am there as well, to a certain degree.
But over the years, I've also come to appreciate all the systems and infrastructure that is necessary even for something as simple as a 3/4" hex nut to exist. From the mines to the forges to the extruders, a lot goes into the making of that nut. Then there some kind of supply system after that.
Similarly it is not just the construction of the starship but also the supply chain, etc., for that construction, and also the infrastructure (repair, replacement, and maintenance) that supports the construction infrastructure. It's a lot more complex than "build it in space."
Yeah you're right, so much harder to scale up.
...Assuming gravity is something you need to account for, in the sense of running it through the Accounting Department. And not just something you acknowledge with a shrug while commuting to orbit via transporter while antigravs float megatons of sensitive equipment and materiel there for the day's work.
For some reason, the Trek players think "ore" is something worth hauling on and off planets and through interstellar space. If worthless inert rock contaminated by trace amounts of valuables is considered an insignificant or otherwise manageable transportation expense, the cost of moving pure duranium or vertenium cortenide mightn't stand a chance of stopping you from building your starships right above your high-gravity planets.
Timo Saloniemi
For some reason, the Trek players think "ore" is something worth hauling on and off planets and through interstellar space. If worthless inert rock contaminated by trace amounts of valuables is considered an insignificant or otherwise manageable transportation expense, the cost of moving pure duranium or vertenium cortenide mightn't stand a chance of stopping you from building your starships right above your high-gravity planets.
Timo Saloniemi
I assume you're talking about pictures of orbital construction.
One image I certainly remember is the uncompleted Space Station V in "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Robert
Yes, a painting called "Assembling the ships for the Mars expedition" by Chesley Bonestell, 1956. Crews in spacesuits work on some pointy, large-winged spacecraft, with Earth below and a wheel space station in the distance.
Thank you
Ha, I half guessed you were talking about a Chesley Bonestell painting.
I remember that painting along with Bonestell's other works.
About the subject of orbital construction, in at least a few science fiction books, an aspect of orbital construction is that a lot of the material that goes into it comes from the moon. Of course the reason why is that the moon's gravity well is much less deep than Earth's and its much easier to get bulk material into space.
One of my uncles, now deceased, was an egghead. Although he wasn't actually in the army, he worked for the army Corps of Engineers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
A long time ago, he once told me about a studdy he had been involved in exploring the feasibility of construction on the Moon in the late '60s/early '70s during the Apollo moon missions.
If I remember right, he said just about everything they would need for construction in bulk is on the moon but the biggest problem was the lack of water.
My uncle was never interested in science fiction so it was quite fascinating to find out he had seriously worked on such science fictiony stuff.
As an aside, another thing he talked about a couple of times was working on voice recognition software long before it became common. No he's not the father of voice recognition, he was just one of many people working on it.
Robert
Apparently it involves something that can keep the extremely thin Martian atmosphere burning for at least a dozen years...
(Looks at forum title) What episode of TOS does that occur in?
Mars has been terraformed by that point, remember?
(Looks at forum title) What episode of TOS does that occur in?
The same episode of TOS that mentions anything about shipyards at Utopia Planitia on Mars.
Twas a bit of snark, hence the smiley face.
Right. Once you have antigrav, building stuff in hard vacuum doesn't make sense if you don't have to. Even if antigrav is fuel-inefficient, you only need it for a little while to get out of a gravity well before switching to more conventional reaction drives.
"Blast-off" in the future is akin to a balloon ride, not a rocket launch.
Except oxygen tends to oxidize and you may not want materials exposed to it.
The should have written a book.
I wonder if anyone did a model of the Bonestell rocketplane. I like it better than Orion III.
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