Need help with my Sci-Fi

[Dr Roberts]

Sorry if this should be in a different section if so please feel free to move.

I am Currently writing a Hard Sci-Fi but I want artificial Gravity. I know you can have the ship spin but, is there any other realistic way? Or at least a way that is not really possible but only just. I thought of having a large mass at the center of a Ship or station but i'm sure i read somewhere this couldn't be done. Could you please help?

[CaptainChewbacca]

A mass large enough at the center of the ship to give it realistic gravity would make it insanely hard to move. Either do rotation, magnetic shoes, or allow for the generation of 'gravion' particles or somesuch.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think magnetic shoes and/or clothes would be the best bet. IIRC that's what they had in the rather forgettable "Defying Gravity" series.

[Dr Roberts]

I though of something like magnetics but it can fuck with certain electronics. I suppose I can just say All equipment is properly protected and thinking of it now that would make sense with solar winds.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, you'd need some shielding anyway. It's easier to explain that stuff away than a fictional AG generator.

[Metahive]

Currently having convenient artificial gravity on a spaceship in a hard sci-fi setting without doing it the 2001 way, will require such a great amount of hand-waving that you're better off not bothering.

I thought of having a large mass at the center of a Ship or station but i'm sure i read somewhere this couldn't be done. Could you please help?

If you want that mass to just exert one g you already need something as massive as Earth. Not all that practical for a starship I presume.

[Dave]

Sure you can fuck with electronics, but that'd be more along the lines of MRIs than something mild like a couple of rare earth magnets in your shoes against steel deckplate.

Naturally this does not handle things like liquids floating out of the cup and using the lavatories in space.

[Dr Roberts]

Currently having convenient artificial gravity on a spaceship in a hard sci-fi setting without doing it the 2001 way, will require such a great amount of hand-waving that you're better off not bothering.

I thought of having a large mass at the center of a Ship or station but i'm sure i read somewhere this couldn't be done. Could you please help?

If you want that mass to just exert one g you already need something as massive as Earth. Not all that practical for a starship I presume.

Artificial Black hole? Though as this is hard Sci Fi my people can't actually do that so point conceded though i did admit I thought it was unrealistic anyway.

[Dr Roberts]

Sure you can fuck with electronics, but that'd be more along the lines of MRIs than something mild like a couple of rare earth magnets in your shoes against steel deckplate.

Naturally this does not handle things like liquids floating out of the cup and using the lavatories in space.

I Understand that but to be quite honest I'm not gonna bother mentioning someone on the shitter but eating would be the same as now probably same goes for the toilet.

[Metahive]

Just why do you need convenient artificial gravity for your hard sci-fi story anyway? Is it a dramatic requirement of your story or do you just don't want to bother with rotating sections or people having to bolt themselves to the ground?

I always thought that one of the main points of hard sci-fi was that such concerns are not just handwaved away.

[Dr Roberts]

Because I don't have FTL U have longdurations of being in space and also on planets in the solar system. Humans undergo changes in these environments. I NEED artificial gravity but wanted it realistic there is also a war so I don't want a rotating ship although it could stop to do battle. hmm.

[Ford Prefect]

Having a centrifuge in your ship wouldn't be a big deal, though it might mess with rotating around your axis. but i mean you could make that an element of drama.

In Mobile Suit Gundam, the good ship Argama had a pair of habitat modules which could extend out on booms when the ship wasn't in combat, and start rotating to simulate gravity. Spin sections aren't a big deal.

[Dr Roberts]

What do you guys think of my premise?

We are in the year 22 AUF (After Union Formation) I did this for reasons like people can't criticise my timeframe as I never state what this would be my our current dates. You have the Human Union (a government not unlike the US in regards to sol system states which is every planet in the solar system and their moons (there are uninhabited ones that aren't represented) and there are the semi autonomous interstellar planets that more or les govern themselves but send back ships to arrive at earth every decade or two (depending on distance from Earth) in exchange for medical supplies and technology from sol system. Droid fleets are timed to arrive periodically (Humans crew the ships in Sol sector but it's just not practical to send them unless they are on a colonisation mission which would be one way. Each planet in the Sol System is about equal in population and/or Industry. Anyway due to mounting tensions a war breaks out and, that is what the story follows.

I'm currently on my iPad so my grammar isn't perfect so, if you need something cleared up, ask.

[Metahive]

How can every planet in the Sol system have equal populations and industrial resources when those planets are all so radically different from each other? Forced governmental relocations? Is that why war is looming?

[Dr Roberts]

Yes the central government is ramming more and more people down the planets throats and the people of these can't stand it. I also didn't mean exactly the same just that they are around the same level so the story doesn't go something like several colonies ally and rebel their entire population is less than that of the Union military and just get destroyed in a couple of weeks

[Metahive]

How do you plan to explain the quite advanced terraforming that made this possible? Just which planets do you plan to have as developed colonies? The only planet that is fairly plausible for human colonisation is Mars and there you still have to deal with lower gravity, duststorms and constant static electricity on a planetary scale to not even mention the lack of water and the cold (avg. -63 °C), poisonous atmosphere. The other planets in our system are even worse when it comes to hostile environments, so that I think you'll have to explain in detail if it's to be hard sci-fi.

[Crateria]

I take it the humans terraformed planets in the Sol system, right? That would be the only way to survive on planets like Venus. Otherwise they just get killed from a variety of unfortunate things (intense heat and pressure, no ozone layer, asteroids etc.)

EDIT: Metahive beat me to it.

DOUBLE EDIT: The asteroids and moons the Union colonizes aren't likely to be self sufficient without constant supplies from Earth. How many of these rocky worlds do the Union have? If war breaks out they'll likely come under attack from rebellious worlds if they stay alligned to Earth. If that happens, all they (the hostile planets) have to do is cut off the supplies and starve them out. The rocky worlds would have to either surrender or grow increasingly self-contained in society (perhaps a Spartan style rule) and in economy and hope that they can survive until Earth is victorious.

[Metahive]

A correction to my post above, Mars does have water, it's just all frozen on the poles.

[Dr Roberts]

Sorry I didn't realise k dint mention the Venus State is in fact the Space station above the surface but that is classes as an outpost. Cities on the other planets are either in massive dome structures that also extend underground although Mars is terraformed large amounts of carbon dioxide was pumped in to the atmosphere to thicken it and warm the planet the Ice caps melted releasing the Liquid water. Plants that were altered genetically to best survive were then introduced filling the atmosphere with oxygen. (This is over quite a long time)

[Batman]

Erm-given that mankind manages to survive in space already (and has for half a century) why would any terraforming be necessary? Sure, colonies on other planets would likely need to be somewhat more sophisticated than a moon base (at least on the moon you have no weather) but the basic premise is the same-you can't survive on the surface. Easily solved the same it is for a moon base-don't bother trying. Yeah, it'd be essentially a space habitat on the ground, but in a hard SciFi setting that has one large advantage over a real space habitat-built-in gravity. Sure, it's not a full g, but it's free, and you get an atmosphere to act as radiation and meteor shield (obviously depending on where you park the colony).

[Dr Roberts]

Does anyone here also have any links to good Hard Sci Fi's? I would like to read some in order to get the feel for it. I was originally considering making the union capable of creating a wormhole but an individual ship would not be able to to do this just the series of solar satellites forming a kind of dyson swarm which would create only a tiny wormhole that can be opened only a couple of minutes to each extrasolar planet a day to send through Info Bursts to each other but I scrapped it. Do you think maybe I should resurrect that or leave it out of it?

[Metahive]

Sorry I didn't realise k dint mention the Venus State is in fact the Space station above the surface but that is classes as an outpost.

That doesn't sound like a plausible idea. Not only are space stations utterly dependent on supplies from elsewhere, life on a space station is also incredibly limited and uncomfortable if you stick to hard sci-fi. It would only make sense as a sort of prison colony and it would be one heck of an expensive one at that.

EDIT:
Other purposes are science or mining colonies, but they'd be fairly limited in size.

Cities on the other planets are either in massive dome structures that also extend underground

Same problems as above except with more gravity but a host of other problems depending on the planet or moon.

although Mars is terraformed large amounts of carbon dioxide was pumped in to the atmosphere to thicken it and warm the planet the Ice caps melted releasing the Liquid water. Plants that were altered genetically to best survive were then introduced filling the atmosphere with oxygen.

Mars' atmosphere is already mostly carbon dioxide. Also, where did the fertile topsoil for the plants to grow on come from? Mars doesn't have any and importing it in large raw quantities from Earth doesn't sound like a good idea.

Erm-given that mankind manages to survive in space already (and has for half a century) why would any terraforming be necessary?

That's an...exaggeration to say the least. Mankind can send a handful of people into near orbit for short periods of time and mostly get them back in one piece but that's not in any way comparable to spending a lifetime in space. It's like saying because we can send people into the Mariana's Trench, mankind can survive in the depths of the sea.

No terraforming means limited space, limited mobility and utter dependence on the outside for supplies. How can Earth alone feed its own population and that of a handful of off-world colonies that are per this scenario equal in size population-wise?

[Drooling Iguana]

I know you can have the ship spin but, is there any other realistic way?

Have the ship constantly burn its engines, providing 1g of thrust. You'd still have a period of microgravity at the half-way point in the journey as the ship turns around, though.

[Batman]

Yeah, it'd be essentially a space habitat on the ground, but in a hard SciFi setting that has one large advantage over a real space habitat-built-in gravity.

Rotational gravity is cheaper than real gravity.

That depends entirely on how much of it you need. Planets typically give you...well, a planet's worth of it? (Naturally doesn't apply to gas giants)
And by the time you seriously consider colonizing the solar system (leave alone already having done it) getting in and out of a gravity well as present is obviously no longer much of a concern.

[Metahive]

How so without magical handwave technology like molecular synthesizers? We are talking about space stations having to accomodate possibly millions of people here after all. Where do you put all the stuff needed to produce the resources for all those people? Where does all the waste go? Just litter the orbit with it?