Why don’t we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone’s shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
You have me thinking of like… A ring around the equator with space elevators on it (with stations at the top), and “rail” tracks, with trains traveling between all the stations. Gaussian launchers sending packages to your nearest delivery depot.
Believe it or not, that’s a feasible (ish) plan for a space elevator we could build right now. Instead of having a counterweight at GEO that’s pulling on a carbon nanotube rope, you have a ring spinning inside another ring in LEO. The outer ring could be made of Kevlar, and IIRC, it would take something like a year or two of all current Kevlar production. You then need four stations approximately equidistant apart around the equator to act as counterweights.
The station for the Pacific would itself be quite the engineering challenge. Not a lot of land you can use at the place you need.
Why don’t we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone’s shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
Thats exactly how I want my buttplug delivered - shot via a rail gun directly at it’s destination.
What if I live in the geographic center of a continent? How do I know which coastline cannon to order from?
Depends on prevailing winds.
I see no setting where this could go horribly wrong.
Im gonna need some concept art first. for research puposes
Currently seeking angel investors for 500m buy-in, or I’ll take a 200kg of plutonium, if you’ve got that.
Good god, the stress that would be on the hydrofoil’s connecting pieces makes my meager mind whimper.
Honestly this does sound fucking awesome. It could be sold to the ‘murica crowd.
You have me thinking of like… A ring around the equator with space elevators on it (with stations at the top), and “rail” tracks, with trains traveling between all the stations. Gaussian launchers sending packages to your nearest delivery depot.
Believe it or not, that’s a feasible (ish) plan for a space elevator we could build right now. Instead of having a counterweight at GEO that’s pulling on a carbon nanotube rope, you have a ring spinning inside another ring in LEO. The outer ring could be made of Kevlar, and IIRC, it would take something like a year or two of all current Kevlar production. You then need four stations approximately equidistant apart around the equator to act as counterweights.
The station for the Pacific would itself be quite the engineering challenge. Not a lot of land you can use at the place you need.
Just anchor one of the garbage patches and use that.