Orbital Rings
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- The Orbital Ring is a type of launch-assist system that goes beyond moving small ships and crews into space and allows cheap movement of bulk cargo up to space, into orbit, and beyond.
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Cover Art by Jakub Grygier: www.artstation...
Graphics Team:
Jarred Eagley
Katie Byrne
Misho Yordanov
Murat Mamkegh
Pierre Demet
Sergio Botero
Stefan Blandin
Script Editing:
Andy Popescu
Connor Hogan
Edward Nardella
Eustratius Graham
Gregory Leal
Jefferson Eagley
Luca de Rosa
Michael Gusevsky
Mitch Armstrong
MolbOrg
Naomi Kern
Philip Baldock
Sigmund Kopperud
Steve Cardon
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Music:
Sergey Cheremisinov, "Sirius"
Kai Engel, "Endless Story about Sun and Moon"
Koalips, "Kvazar"
Markus Junnikkala, "A Memory of Earth"
Dan McLeod, NeptuneUK, "Mysterious Universe"
AJ Prasad, "Staring Through"
Man, i'd love to play a strategy or a sandbox game with all the technologies discussed on this channel. From humble rockets, to space fountains, to moving freaking planets and suns. Kind of KSP on steroids. One can dream!
Stellaris kind of has megastructures... but moving stars isn't something that's all that common. Heck, so many sci-fi franchises, stories, games, etc. don't even take into account the fact that they are already moving.
I think the real problem is capturing the true scale of things, such a game would have an immensely long period of just waiting for your things to get anywhere (Such a game would probably lack FTL) But once you start going, you're likely to snowball wildly out of control, and enter a whole new phase of gameplay as colonies on the fringes of your fledeling empire revolt, and you send immense Siegeships (The term I have for interstellar-capable warships, as such a thing is most likely a titanic behemoth meant to function as a one-ship-fleet for very obvious reasons) hurtling through the void to counter them, explore the larger galaxy and find the ancient remains of dyson swarms, ecumenopoli, star-lifters, and more.
Uncover the secrets of the universe, transcend beyond the organic bodies you started with, and ultimately, explore beyond your galaxy, massive probes flying off into the void, extensions of your mind as you set your sights on Andromeda, the Magellanic clouds, and the void itself.
Got off on a tangent there, the idea is just so amazing, and I hope for the day that such a game comes into existence.
@@randomnerd4211stellaris
The idea of a Space Elevator has become too mainstream. We must come up with a more Sci-fi yet paradoxically more plausible method of achieving orbit!
Maybe a super reliable rockets that can make trips up and down many many times (like a Volkswagen golf)? At the end of the day the physics of flying a rocket is not so much different than this of driving an internal combustion engine - the only difference is the amount of research used in both technologies.
Nikolay Tanev a rocket would always require at least an order of magnitude more energy than a non-rocket launch system (at large enough scales)
I think we should just use a giant sling shot...
I think if we drill thru the Earth from the poles and use gravity and electromagnetism to accelerate towards the earths magnetic centre and then pass thru it and use electromagnetism to repel the centre to reach orbital speed and beyond.
@@bobinthewest8559 skyhooks and railgun combo is big win you can even add scramjets in middle
Late to the conversation, but I just had an idea.
Build an equatorial orbital ring around mars, and build two large skyhooks to Phobos and Deimos.
The Phobos skyhook would extend 6,000 km down to the ring, and an additional 6,000 km above Phobos.
The Deimos skyhook would extend 25,000km down to the ring and an additional 25,000km above it.
You could then have EM vac trains along the ring that could catch up with the tips of each of the skyhooks.
If we can build a mars space elevator we can build these skyhooks, and, though I have not done the math it seems like the orbital eccentricity and inclination of the two moons is such that you build such a thing and service them both with a single orbital ring. The ring might have to be pretty wide though.
These would be way better than a Mars space elevator, and their orbital speeds would be so high above normal speeds at those altitudes that you could ship hundreds of tons to or from Mars to anywhere else really cheaply.
this needs to be implemented.
great video as always Isaac Arthur. it's well researched and explained to the audience as always man great job :)
I really love active support ideas, but the joining of the planets via orbital rings in this video ignores the eccentricity of the orbits of the planet, which would make the links bend and stretch. This raises a much more interesting idea: what happens if you use an eccentric orbital ring, so that one side is touching earth's surface, while the other goes far out into space? This way you can go up and down without having to build any other additional structures!
I honestly look as forward to each of your videos as I ever did with each episode of Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos before that. Way different content, but every bit as fulfilling. And as always, well worth the wait! Thanks for the bonus episode this week. And again congrats on 100k!!
Nice as always : )
Did a little math, a 1 awg (little over 1/4 inch dia.) and it would only take a little more than 17,000 tons of copper to do 50 mile high circumference.
I don't know what the structural strength would need to be but earth magnetic field and self generated ones on the ring would need to be taken into effect because cumulatively this is a significant force. Very important when doing the guide wires. I might do a little math on this and see how much force.
Man Isaac, im so happy i found your channel a while ago... im really a bit sad that you only do one video a week but i understand why ;-) congratulations to 100k from germany
Well, my good sir, you are really making my Thursdays not only more enjoyable, but also quite eagerly anticipated :)
No sci fi author could come up with this shit. Yet here it is as a potential reality. I love it.
Starship troopers had an impressive one
It's funny, the only fictional example of an orbital ring I've ever seen is from a rather weird anime called 'kiddy grade'.
That series is full of lots of very strange stuff, but whoever designed the orbital ring in that clearly had a pretty good grasp on the concept.
You see the main characters launch their spaceship by having it mounted on a support vehicle that is basically a large maglev train...
Seeing something that well thought out in what is otherwise a series full of really weird and dubious concepts is certainly amusing...
There's a few, I've never played it but there's some game called HaLo with one, and I remember an early 90s anime called Tekkiman [sp?] that had one too, they show up a little more in written scifi, kinda expensive of th FX budget to show one till recently.
amazing production quality and content!
im glad i found this
God I would give anything to have something even close to this be achieved during my lifetime.
awesome graphics
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
I'm thinking that the cheapest way to implement the orbital ring is to use mass drivers to send chunks as cargo up there, then use traditional rockets to get the astronauts to piece the chunks together. Or is there an even cheaper way to do it?
So make it 30km wide, and have highways and small cities dotted all over it!
Keep up the great work!
my only real concern with this is the prevention of attacks. This can help humanity in so many ways, but can bring so much devastation..
If wish the world leaders could realize that money is not the real challenge, we already have all the resources and energy needed to build these, I wonder how many of these structures will be build in our life time.
I'm not so sure about ring jumping (ring jumping sounds better than tiny diving). Ultra high altitude jumps have a big problem with tumbling because of the thin atmosphere, so who ever is operating it probably wouldn't allow it for safety reasons.
happy 100k my man, you deserve every sub
Excellent
when do we get episodes about these 'extreme' megastructures???
Awesome video
Could you put a series of orbital rings in between Orth and Mars, similar to what you said about the moon, and take a train to Mars?
:) Yes
Great post.
Been waiting for this, thanks! Fantastic work. Though I must ask how you'd maintain the momentum. Thermodynamics will bite you in the ass eventually.
An idea for a future video: the concept of micronations built on these orbital rings, bring up kekistan, discuss what you want this new country to represent. Should Kekistan be open to virtually everyone? Or should this country have some kind of vetting process like the US immigration control. How strict should it be? Should we go into extreme control like Japan?
Alorian Kolor First Officer of The Army of Kekistan well, we would save money on helicopter rides, so paying for it wouldn't be a problem.
Alorian Kolor First Officer of The Army of Kekistan
OMG YASSS A REAL KEKISTAN!!!
Alorian Kolor First Officer of The Army of Kekistan
seeland in space?
Orbital rings would probably be heavily controled by the governments, so I dont think there would be any micronations there. Rotating habitats are much better for that.
Have a first wave of people with one set of rules (there'd have to be some level of vetting I'd think) then allow those first people to dictate what follows.
It's Arthrusday!!!! wOo0o0o0o0o!!!!!1111 fuck yeah!!!!!11
Why rings of debris fields from cryovolcanism are ideal for smugglers?
So could an orbital "ring" be an orbital figure 8 that follows the free return path of Apollo between the earth and moon?
This script could have used little more work. I got lost at the "hoops with magnets" part. But the visuals are great. I've seen worse out of Discovery channel. Overall, keep up the good work!
Yes I did feel that part might be unclear, but none of the folks who I have review the scripts beforehand these days mentioned it, so I thought it might just be me, I wrote it so it obviously made sense to me and I always have difficulty knowing what will or won't be clear to others.
Wouldn't an orbital ring be basically impossible anywhere but equatorial orbit?
No, the main support - the magnetic ring - is an object moving at orbital velocity that just happens to be long enough to circle around the planet. The part we can attach things to is stationary with respect to the surface underneath it, no matter the orbital inclination. In the case of any ring the rate of rotation is equal to that of the earth.
I have another question. If you have two magnets a negative and a negative or positive Ana positive would repel. Is there any way we could use that Theory to propel a car? Also would we be able to use the spinning of the wheels of a car to actually charge the car like we do with an alternator charging the battery only each wheel has a type of alternator that would build up and store energy that we could use to propel the car?
no
So something I'm really confused about here. Since the orbit of the inner part of one of these that's not around the equator would normally have the earth spinning beneath it, what, maybe wrong term, precesses the orbit? Is the inner stream just subjected to constant off-bore acceleration to get the entire thing to be shifting along the earth's axis as well as its own, far removed orbital axis? Do the guy wires just sort of...drag it along and the magnets shove the central wire in the right direction?
I appear to have answered my own question after a lot of googling. Don't understand the math involved, but we'll get there.
It might be worth doing the equatorial ring, We can worry about the more complicated ones later after some experience.
The problem with all these concepts is that you're hanging your stuff on magnets. Magnets are not cheap enough that you would live your entire life, all your buildings, farmland etc hanging on magnets. I mean, transportation, sure, but not just sitting around.
I don't think i'd want to live in a building that was just literally hanging from space.
Isaac Arthur for president
as always Isaac amazing video.
Dear Santa,
This year i want an orbital ring.
Because it is a big wish i will be my only one this year.
Have a relevant joke:
A philosopher caught a goldfish and it told him it will grant him any one wish if he set it free. He agreed and asked it to build a network of six lane highways between the continents to bring the people of the world together as brothers. The fish said:"Oh come on man, that will take me forever, got any easier requests?"
He thought for a while and said:"I want you to explain to me how the female mind works."
The fish replied:"How many lanes did you want that highway to have again?"
1503 nemanja True true! NOBODY knows how the female mind works!
lol imagine suddenly a orbital ring pops up in orbit around earth xD
But could you put it in place please with already accelerated wires in it?
the wires are the first part you put in place
Too bad you didn't use this line for the beginning: "Most launch systems can get colonists to the stars cheaply. Orbital rings can get civilizations to the stars on a busy day."
Nice one!
:D
That is a good one! I like the one we did hear but that's as good. I always have a problem coming up with those intro one-liners since introducing them, I like them but they're hard to come up with.
One day he will be remembered for making these ideas tangible for the average person to be able to comprehend. For that you will earn a permanent spot as a futurist/ visionary in our society. Thank you so much for you work
King Weaverbe- Isaac Arthur, the man who sold us the Moon, the Solar System and everything!
100th like.
@@Ari-nw3qy - a bit more than two years after posting, 7.6K likes.
Really though. He’ll be a part of Internet history. An early adopter of the voice/video based Gutenberg revolution. Used it for cool shit
He's now on the Wikipedia list of notable futurists! That said he deserves a lot more recognition cause these videos are amazing
I am addicted to your videos. The only difference is that this is one addiction that I don't want to get rid of.
Its probably because the videos are performed in a very present state of mind, where clocktime does not exist, making it joyful and flowfull. Check out eckart tolle and his teaching for more zen and and mindfullness:) Its the best:)
Even videos that I don't think will be interesting end up luring me in and inspiring me!
It's like a belt to keep our space pants up.
That... is actually a strangely appropriate analogy.
Dustin Smith Do my poles look big in this ring?
We don't want to hear about how big your pole is, +luciephilip.
Maybe the best joke I've seen among the many great comments here at SFIA!
Many thanks for the excellent laugh, Mr. Smith!
Damn girl, are those space pants...
Imagine being a member of the North Sentinel Island tribe or any uncontacted tribe in the Amazon and looking up and seeing an orbital ring one day.
Three rings for the Elven kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne...
Gert Willems does that make man said Dark Lord?
I thought the argument was here: the more rings the better so I guess not. But anyone can have his own idea about this.
Build a ring on Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, and then one on Europa...? That would be nine, and thanks to entropy we are doomed to die.
Congratulations! You are the nerdiest comment on a nerdy video! You win the day
One for the sun 3 for jupiter uranüs and neptün i skip satürn because i dont think post and long lived like elf do not destroy beuty for gain
If you like it orbit a ring around it
FarawayWayfarer brilliant
#insertmamajokehere
FarawayWayfarer hahahahahaha
+FarawayWayfarer
All the Single Planets...all the Single Planets!
All the Single Planets...all the Single Planets!
"'Cause if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it" Beyonce - Single ladies
So, if humanity likes the earth...
The Rolls Royce of orbital assist! ive been looking forward to this one Isaac, you're amazing!
Yeah its kind of our mid-season climax :)
Drew McTygue he said climax
King Weaverbe he did, but I'm reasonably sure that his mind wasn't in the gutter.
I didn't know Rolls Royce had that good an performance :Ü™
How do the non-equatorial rings work? Wouldn't Earth rotate beneath them, since their angular momentum vectors have to stay fixed?
I wish that there was a 4X game that contained all these fancy constructs, and not just some entry level stuff
yes, would be nice
4X requires conflict, which requires that civilizations can't just spend centuries expanding in their own solar system with no need to fight others.
stellaris has some, but they suck in that game
the dyson sphere pisses me off
lordcirth Make it like Pharaoh then
The dyson sphere in stellaris is pretty Op. It gives you 1000 energy which is significantly more than you need even if you have every other megastructure
These new animations are amazing!
Seriously! I've been listening to everything on soundcloud and I was suuuuper surprised at how great the visuals here were lol
except the broken stars at 24:00
thats hard to look at.
That's not a bug. That's a feature!
Feature for what software? After Effects? It's only the one I could think of.
Blender presumably, I actually screwed that up, a few animations I did don't have the right frame rate for the video's 25 fps, I didn't see that epileptic siezure on them till the video rendered, and we were up against deadlines, so I replaced them all but missed one.
Two massive things I didn't see addressed...
First, an orbital ring is essentially a giant gyroscope, and has a massive amount of angular momentum associated with it. If you're placing it in a 'fixed' non-equatorial orbit, you'll need to spend a ton of energy 'fighting' that angular momentum to keep it rotating with earth. In a polar position, you're completely changing direction every 12 hours.
Second, is electromagnetic induction. When a magnetic field and a metal(even if non-conductive) are passing each other at high speeds, you get very significant resistance. For example, if you drop a magnet down an aluminum tube, it drops significantly slower than it should. If you do this with a conductive tube, the effect is even more pronounced. Essentially, your levitating platforms and tethers will induce large drag forces on the spinning part of your ring.
fjdkfjdk I agree on both points, but don't understand the "changing direction every 12 hours". Can you explain?
It seems, to me, you'd need lots of solar energy to overcome the magnetic drag. Any extra could actually be used to accelerate the ring even faster.
But how do you add momentum to the ring when the shell is being constructed and dragging it slower? Maybe booster rockets could be used temporally. Issac Arthur, a construction description would make a good video!
Calculating the energy required to keep a polar ring fixed to the earth while spinning is somewhat complicated(would earth eventually start spinning end over end? - see angular momentum demonstrations with person on swivel chair and a spinning bike tire), so it's easier to approximate using a lower bound approximation instead.
Let's say you have a ring in a polar orbit that is fixed to the earth, and spinning at a fixed speed. Take a snapshot of the angular momentum now, and then take another snapshot 12 hours later. The angular momentum vectors will be facing in opposite directions, because you've had to rotate the ring 180degrees to match earths rotation. Angular momentum is a conserved quantity, so there are no shortcuts. No matter what path you take to get there, the energy you use to move between those two states is going to be greater than or equal to the energy required to completely reverse the direction of a ring that was not spinning.
Gyroscopic precession doesn't help much either, because that's driven by gravity acting downward on the whole gyroscope - planets do not start wobbling when they slow down for this reason, unlike a top.
As for magnetic drag... what a mathematical can of worms. I'm not sure how to even approximate the drag force, so I'm in the dark. So much depends on the design and materials used for both the ring and the supporting structures. It's a huge problem from a design perspective, but it may be solvable.
If you have a structure housing two separate rings orbiting in opposite directions, then the structure as a whole has no angular momentum, and you should be able to rotate it without that much trouble.
Isaac briefly mentions in the video that you want several separate rings, and you want them in opposite directions.
2 electromagnetic rings moving at double the orbital velocity relative to each other extremely close together, I don't see that being a solution, any instability in the ring structure would have them colliding.
He doesn't do construction details because most of his recent videos border on LARPing, no technical details, handwavium and rambling prose make up the content, rather than anything scientific or concrete
@@rollieroulston it's pretty simple, you get one ring up first, build a stationary platform capable of holding 2 rings and then set up the second ring orbiting it in the opposite direction of the first.
I very recently discovered this channel and was completely blown away. Congrats on 100k, Isaac! Some of the best content on TH-cam!
Thanks, and welcome to the channel!
Speaking of which - regarding the subject of which of Isaac Arthur's themed series makes a good gateway for new viewers- Upward Bound is good - it has pretty animations and a generally more TV show like feel to it it's more practical and less philosophical than the Fermi Paradox shows are - but that said if someone was into psychology I'd totally recommend them. His shows about Aliens are sometime funnier though.
I'm still plugging away though so I'll see how I feel once I've completely caught up.
You didn't "discover" shit, we were all here first.
Happy Arthurs Day! The space elevator gets a lot of attention, I'm glad you are sharing these alternative visions which could make space travel more affordable.
Because media is composed of simple minded people. With about as much scientific interest and competence as a fish.
aserta I mean even Space elevators are outside the mainstream. When the main stream thinks about sci-fi they probably imagine something more like Star Wars.
aserta Hey! That's not very nice!
Fish aren't THAT stupid.
So I'm like 9 minutes in and thinking: This seems like something we theoretically could actually build... Unlike other concepts where we lack the required materials. Gotta watch more to find out...
I seriously hope this is Elon Musk's long term plan. Make Rockets reusable. Start mining stuff in the solar system. Then build an orbital ring.
I mean this seems like something you could build similar like the ISS. Build a few thousand standard modules. Stick them together like legos in space. Once you have the ring bring it to the desired speed. It would cost a lot but the benefit would be huge.
My impression was Blue Orgin focusing on earth orbit and Spacex focusing on Mars. If the rockets are really reusable they should be able to launch ring pieces instead of exploring Mars.
just make by any means a base (without humans) on the moon add a pinch of automation and teleoperation of equipment make that happen medium.com/p/robots-replacing-human-in-future-e8de498fb34d and make as many rings as you like.
stefan r You do have to have somewhere to go in order for this to be worth the cost. A mars colony is definitely somewhere to go.
This looks to be a possible concept, the biggest hindrance would probably be material (quantity) and getting that stuff into space so I think Moon + Asteroid Mining would come first this would make materials a lot cheaper than they are currently and would put a lot of materials in space. The thing is we actually have to get space travel with rockets to that point before making this leap. This also avoids and geopolitical concerns that could impact a project like this.
"'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it"
I am going to have to work that into some episode, you're the third to make that joke and it still makes me chuckle :)
this is the best channel on youtube. Asimov would be all over this.
I miss the good old days when this comment section used to be full of interesting discussions instead of all these generic Arthursday comments
join FB
Molb0rg
I deleted my Facebook account a few years ago.
yeah, then more search trough comments, good people they still there, maybe reddit
or create thread on 4chan, post there a link, i would like to participate ))
Imagine using them to work in another country.
Catwow lofstrom loop
And if we spun it slightly faster than orbital velocity we could literally INCREASE tension across the planet.
I sure spun up some pun there!
No? Okay I'll go away.
pered5 ok see you next time around
Orbital rings are one of my favorite topics you've talked about so far, excited to watch this video!
"I remember some years back before I started the channel I used to play with _more extreme forms of megastructures_ …not the ones we’ve covered on the channel, *those are all basic ones, even the solar system sized ones…* WTF? Seriously? I can't even imagine! I thought you were pushing it about as far as it could go already!
Yes! I have no idea how to push these even further. I would really like an episode on the more bizarre ones.
Like, what does he drop next? He already told us how to land on the sun and build a civilization in their cores!
Orbital Rings: jusss
Dyson swarms next week: YUSSS
I know this gets said every episode but I love you and your content and as a request for the 200K subscriber video: How about you give us some examples of those crazier ideas you mentioned around the 25 minute mark.
This is one of my favorite episodes, and I come back occasionally to refresh on the details. Great work, and thank you!
These ideas are better than 99% of sci-fi content. Why is nobody writing books or making movies based on these concepts?? It would be a fresh, scientifically plausible and amazingly cool setting for any story to involve basically ANY of the tech explained in Arthur's videos! Maybe I should write one. :|
People do, you just don’t hear about them because they’re niche.
What kind of material that could handle being made as 100klm cable and being suspended without breaking?
Kevlar, Zylon, carbon fibre or carbon nanotubes
If you want to know more about this real engineering went into a lot of depth about materials that could do this basing it off of a research paper and building upon those ideas
If orbital rings became a reality, I could imagine the entire population (or a large portion) moving into space and living on the ring, while the earth itself became a nature reserve/farm.
It would need to be a large ring. Like far larger than shown. In fact, you'd need multiple. Besides why just the ring. You could put people on rotating habitats in higher orbit of the earth, moon and further if space become an issue.
Low end estimated cost is $2 trillion and high end is $80 trillion.
Sounds like a lot but the US alone squanders that kind of money on bank bailouts, covid panic, pointless wars, or welfare boondoggles
In the original episode I somehow got the impression that they worked via electromagnetics and used the Earth's magnetic field to stay afloat. I'm glad you made a second one because that cleared it up for me.
+hedgehog3180
unfortunately you can't use earth's magnetic field as an object to push off of. You can create impulse using it, that's true, but you can't float on it.
I'm waiting in an airport with a one hour lay over. just perfect timing for to watch this
Shawn Barbour see, if we had the rings you'd probably be where you were headed already.
crazyahhkmed What if he was going to the moon? Then it'd still be a day or two.
Shawn Barbour safe travels
AncapFTW as opposed to not even being able to go at all currently?
Lost Desire sure we can. you have 100 million dollars on you, right?
I was just pointing out that once we had it, we can travel so much further, it's ridiculous.
Happy Arthursday everyone!
we should say Arthursday instead of thuesday
"i'd like to say the sky's the limit as far as orbital rings go, but that would be a gross oversimplification"
Isaac Arthur: concepts so big you can't talk about them without destroying the English language.
Could you theoretically use some massive orbital rings with diameter of whole solar system or more, in order to speed up to speeds close to the speed of light, making fast interstellar, or even intergallactic travel plausible?
Yes but its not ideal for that, there are better options like those we discussed in Interstellar highways.
Just search the diameter of your ring, and calculate how many g of centrifugal force you have on it at a speed close to lightspeed (I suggest you not to go above half lightspeed not to mess with relativistic effects) and you'll have your own answer :)
The mass... The mass... (Apocalypse now?) and the energy... The energy...
I'm still a bit confused on how you would construct a ring at a different inclination. I'm good with how to do it equatorialy and I know you can do the same thing at say 30 degrees but I'm not sure how would you match the ring to the planets rotation so you could attach a cable to the surface.
Probably could be done by using atmosphere, like water anchor. However, yes one of the unnecessary problems.
Yes, I've been wondering that too. Keeping an inclined ring stationary with respect to the planet's surface would require continuously changing the plane of the orbit. That requires applying a lot of force very carefully.
+Kevin Smith may be actually and advantage, to accelerate the rotor, extract energy from Earth rotating.
I wondered about that one, too, then I realized that the cable is on a multi-axis orbit, and the maglev track is just floating.
It'll just rotate with the Earth... might be a bit dangerous though when first being set up.
Arthursday! I got to say your videos are always so good I've gotten in the habit of hitting the like button before I've even watched the episode.
me too
I only hit the like button on two of them. I thought I was liking the series. Guess I'll have to watch them again and hit the button this time!
Ahhhhhhh, what a lovely fix for my worst (as most severe) and best (as least harmful) addiction!
Arthursday, finally! :D
I could never figure out how to keep an orbital ring stable. Once you explained how to suspend the outer ring over the inner one, it clicked in my brain. I saw some really cool stuff as my mind put this knowledge to work, but it still wasn't as cool as what was in the latter part of this video.
This is a video I think I will be mulling over for the rest of my life
Xenoblade chronicles 2 brought me here. Thanks for the explanation.
I thought I was the only one lol
this is such a good idea I've watched it 3 times
4 more times
would the elliptical rings work? the orbital speed change in elliptical orbits whereas a circular one would have a constant one. that would mean that a cable wouldn't work and you would have to build a high-amperage particle accelerator, right?
ArthurThursday again! love your channel! since im finaly at my computer again (afther a while) im going to join Patreon (since i was not able to on the ipad) love your channel :)
kraken1122 your thumbnail had me blowing on then rubbing my screen thinking it was an eyelash..... if that was your intention, well played.
Shaun Husain
Me too.
I spent about ten seconds trying to get it off my laptop screen lol! Then I scrolled down and felt a little silly as the thumbnail moved with it...
24:53 -You could actualy walk from earth to the moon... Well if you could walk straight up, what you can't it would be a distance of ~348000 km. So we would have to build some stairs. And I don't think anyone will be interested in walking 348000 km upstairs, even if it gets easier as the gravity decreases. Interesting video though.
Yeah, and walk to Sagittarius A as soon as you have succesfully built a 25,000 lightyears stairway powered by Isaac Awethows Wordsalad™.
i love that intro music...
It seems very unstable as it would behave like a chain wiping out around a obstacle as it runs through heavy sections of platform applying force to it; retaining this would create stupendous amounts of heat. And now I think, the moons tidal forces would be hellish on it. The concept is great though it leaves a lot of questions as to the supporting mechanics, especially as to what will stop it from stretching like a rubber band as iron usually dose
Correct, however, it is an overimplifyed visual representation of possible engineering solution.
Active support platforms on the other hand, what with there relatively small scale are reasonably realistic.
"small scale" Watch Cody's Lab tay pie video - the same end - timelapse.
The main problem with active structures is reliability, not the scale, as for my opinion. It is possible to make them reliable, but we do not have that tech yet.
I'm doing a PhD with the ATLAS Experiment and Thanks for re-invigorating my imagination! Looking forward to more and more content!
This is by far the best youtube channel i ever stumbled upon. If anyone ever deserved being promoted from youtube to prime time on cable it is you. Keep up the great work!
The Earth and the Moon have been going steady for about 4 Billion years or so. Isn't it time for Earth to step up and put a 'Ring On It'?
Your channel is amazing! After studying physics with a specialisation in astrophysics most documentaries get boring. But your videos and the level of detail and accuracy is way out there! Keep them coming!
No offence, but with the current state of "space junk" this will never be remotely possible.
And that really bums me out
or what if you can use said space junk, and build part of the ring with it :D
That's why 80 km is nice: there's still enough atmosphere to protect against most space debris
+Paul Aldrich
Well then, I always wanted to clean the orbit up, maybe it's time to start a company devoted to that.
Stuff doesn't stay on Low Earth Orbit for long, there is still some atmospheric drag there.
I love how positive this is. We are told the earth is ended, people are broken, and there is no hope from our own destruction tendencies. Than you come along and show how practical science and engineering with real world concepts can keep humanity moving forward. Its refreshing thank you.
When you see a video go up but you have to do something in like 5 minutes =(
100K of us ! congrats Isaac!
Do a video on hive mind aliens
We probably will
Isaac Arthur various types? Like natural and artificial (borg or something)
Someone 1282 that's a great idea! Hive minds have always interested me, and I'm curious how one would have to adapt if one were to spread to the interstellar scale
Someone 1282 If you like that idea, you may have read, or would like to read Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth series. Terrifying hive minds! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Saga
How about hive minds that aren't bad guys? Instead of _Star Trek_'s "bionic zombies" they could be... IDK, gods or something. They'd probably seem pretty godlike to us.
The notion of commuting to orbit reminds me of the opening scenes of the film "Heavy Metal" -- especially in light of the Falcon Heavy launch this week.
should be the plan for Venus colonization
that's an awesome idea!
Just build a shellworld over Venus.
I'll build my own planet! With blackjack! And hookers! Okay, no blackjack and hookers, but definitely a new planet!
(Actually, it is Venus, so maybe the occasional... well, nevermind)
Thank you Isaac & team :)
Great video, orbital rings are the best option we have imho and we can start to build NOW. Some points/thoughts: a. Unfortunately, as mentioned, if you want sationary anchors gyroscopic effect restricts earth orbital rings in equatorial orbit with anchors/stations along the equator OR polar orbit with anchors/stations only at the poles (or both). b. We can collect all the space junk/old satt's in an orbit to utilise as raw material for an orbital ring. c. Orbital ring has not to be an actual continous solid ring to work, it can consist of segments of indicidual sattelites/ring parts that individually maintain a precise orbit with the help of propulsion like traditional ion thrusters. The more segments are close to each other and the more mass they have the better, but we can start with significantly less mass than for a solid ring and then scale up. d. Neither the sationary enclosing ring has to be monolithic and solid around the whole orbital ring. In fact It can exist only "above" the anchor points e. Magnetic induction is not an issue (as was mentioned in the comments), on the contrary it will be utilized, the whole ring/enclosing ring anchor support will work as the rotor/stator of a linear motor, stator can be actively driven so that it maintains a stationary position above the anchor, tranfering the forces to the rotor segments as they pass through it.
I am sitting here with an huge grin on my face after watching your video. This is such an amazing concept! Now I am a bit sad for we will never get to see these kind of structures in real life but I am really glad we can at least think and talk about them. Onwards and upwards people!
CSX 6400 The amazing thing here is that you don't know that. The technology required to build these already exists, and if the average lifespan continues to grow, you might actually see it.
Well it might be possible but it unfortunately is not very likely. I do hope I get to witness conventional spaceflight (with rockets and stuff) really take of though.
you mean, like the space astronauts going to the moon next year? I am hopefull for seeing that take off long, LONG before I die, and also probably a (small) permanent moon and/or mars base. :)
one of the best episodes
17:22 Having 2 or 3 moving rings per orbital ring platform would decrease the load on the individual rings, and also make it possible for a larger platform allowing for stations where you can land and take off from, essentially becoming spaceports.