NationStates Jolt Archive

The World of tolanna proposes that we build a dyson shere class2

dyson sphere faq (http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html)

A Dyson Sphere. There's a suggestion I haven't heard in some time. I'm afraid that the problems and technical limitations with a Dyson Sphere will outweigh any advantages you would gain from it.


A Dyson Sphere is enormous. I'm not talking Death Star enormous (though that is an equally ridiculous concept in itself, but that's for another time). A star is MASSIVE, even a small G-type star, and the necessary distance at which you'd need to build it (approx. 1 A.U. if we are referring to a star of similar size and luminosity to Sol) is many times bigger! Even if you only made the Dyson Sphere wafer-thin, you'd need to strip-mine several solar systems' worth of planets to have sufficient resources to build it.
When I say 'strip-mine several solar systems' I mean LOTs of solar systems. You cannot just use any old materials in the construction of something as unimaginably vast and vulnerable as this. Only the strongest and most resistant materials could be used -- and these are not common. You'd end up spending more time mining than building.
Unfortunately, you couldn't build it wafer thin. It would have to be hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres thick to even have a chance at withstanding the immense stress it would be put under 24/7.
Gravity is a problem. Spin the sphere and you'd rip it to shreds. Anti-gravity, if the same type of system as used on Bretonian Warships, would need to be so numerous that you'd probably end up draining more energy than you'd gain from the star in the first place. And that's not including the power drain of any other systems installed on the sphere such as SIFs, external defences, door mechanisms etc.
A Dyson Sphere would take so long to build, regardless of how advanced your technology, that the star it surrounded would probably end up becoming a red giant before you were finished. Even if it was possible to devote 100% of your labour force and economy to the construction of this behemoth, you'd likely never see the finished result. We're not talking a few hundred kilometres across, here. This thing is HUGE. It simply isn't practical.
Considering how stressed and unstable such a massive sphere would be, even if you made its hull thick enough to survive under normal conditions, it wouldn't take a lot to crack it open like an egg. Powerful enemy weapons, natural gravitational shifts or other anomalies, etc. The term 'putting all your eggs into one basket' has never been more applicable.
So far as living space is concerned, yes, you get an enormous amount of surface area. But that's assuming the sphere remained habitable. Considering that the number of habitable planets you'd end up trashing to get resources would probably equate to that amount of living space anyway, it seems rather redundant.
Constructing a functioning ecosystem on the inside of a metal ball, which has no air or protection against solar radiation, is not as easy as you might think.


For these reasons and others, Bretonia will not support such a project. Our time and effort is better focussed on more realistic and practical projects. I would recommend that you also persue other projects, though that is entirely up to you.

Andrew Jackson MP
The Constitutional Monarchy of Bretonia

i could also build a type one dyson sphere consitsting of solar pannels in orbit
or i can use asteroids snice they are mostly nickel iron




also i had a link to the faq for a reason tread it to would eliminate miost of those points

You could do that. But I fail to see why you don't simply use fusion reactors to generate the power you seem to need. Even if you constructed hundreds of them, all working together, to produce the power you seem to need, it would be cheaper and more practical than a Dyson Sphere.

The word 'need' brings me to a question. The Bretonian population is quite large compared to yours, yet we have not yet discovered a need for a Dyson Sphere, even if we were to assume that it had any net benefits to make it worthwhile in the first place. Why do you feel that your nation is in need of such a system? What problems have you experienced which have caused you to even consider this idea?

And the FAQ provided doesn't seem to eliminate the problems I have put forward. Far from it, it simply reinforces what I've been saying by showing you exactly what you would need to make a Dyson Sphere work. The concept of a Dyson Sphere is impractical.

Andrew Jackson MP
The Constitutional Monarchy of Bretonia

It has already been done. The nation(I don't remember who) that did it before took months in RL to build the sphere.

I wonder if you have the manpower, resources, or technology seeing as you are so young.

isent that why im asking for help

Industrial Experiment was the one who built a Dyson Sphere. It took 150 RL days for him to do so.

Firehelper, if you want a massive project like this I suggest you build a Ringworld instead, such as the Halo from the Halo games or Ringworld from Ringworld by Larry Niven. It's less massive than a Dyson Sphere, you can spin it for gravity and you still get a hell of a lot of surface area.

Industrial Experiment was the one who built a Dyson Sphere. It took 150 RL days for him to do so.


And that was only because I didn't feel like spending several years on it IRL. In truth, even with the advantages my nation had in terms of mining and manufacturing processes (material transmution, ability to harvest material from stars, and several other factors), it should right have taken well over a thousand RL days.

However, I learned my lesson well. It serves no practical purpose in NS and actually might outlive your interest in the site before it is completed. I learned this all too well when I let Industrial Experiment die a few weeks ago. GZ is SUPPOSED to be invading and appropriating resources (my last RP with the nation) and technology, etc, sometime in the future, but who knows.

I was planning to do more RPing with the concept I set up for this nation but I'm a lazy bastard who hasn't written anything pertaining to it yet...

Wait, er...

...

...

*Doesn't exist, is a figment of your imagination*

*Drifts off into oblivion*

yea i guess ringworlds are better the then a dyson sphere so who wants to help me do some R&D for a ringworld

or i can make a gas giant a sun then by puting large anti grave units around it i can increace he growing time of my crops leading to a agrecultural surplus

Gas giants don't have the mass to become stars. Even jupiter would need to be a lot (8 times?) larger before igniting. And reducing gravity on a giant would just make a small nebula (not a star), which would coalesce back into a gas giant a while after you turned the anti-grav units off.

wait i need to increase the desity by atleast 8 times then i put grav units around it so it doesnt expand into a nebula

No, you don't have to put gravity on it. Just by adding another 8 or so planets worth of mass, the planet will begin fusion near the core. This will ignite the planet, causing it to become a star.

Also, another star ain't gonna help your growing season. All it will do is increase the temperature and amount of radiation that hits your planet.

They are speaking the truth. Listen to them.

ooc: I'm not an FT Rp'er, so I'll make the assumption that FT players are massively l337 in terms of tech and can finish a dyson sphere in 3 seconds via mass replication or something like that.

The thing is now, even if you could build the Dyson sphere in any reasonable amount of time, wouldn't it be smarter just to simply drain the star's matter off and use it as heat energy?

And Antimatter provides more energy than solar power does anyway.

ooc: I'm not an FT Rp'er, so I'll make the assumption that FT players are massively l337 in terms of tech and can finish a dyson sphere in 3 seconds via mass replication or something like that.

The thing is now, even if you could build the Dyson sphere in any reasonable amount of time, wouldn't it be smarter just to simply drain the star's matter off and use it as heat energy?

And Antimatter provides more energy than solar power does anyway.

OOC: Please don't make that assumption. Some of us attempt to retain at least a modicum of believability. You are right, though; there are infinitely more practical and efficient ways of generating energy in such amounts. Hell, linking up normal fission reactors would probably be more efficient than a Dyson Sphere. You'd probably need to dedicate a whole planet to such a project, but even that's not as extreme. I'd have to do the maths to be sure of that one, though...

ooc: I would think that if you strip mine so many planets, why not just drain off the water to make deutrium for fusion reactions?

OOC: Please don't make that assumption. Some of us attempt to retain at least a modicum of believability. You are right, though; there are infinitely more practical and efficient ways of generating energy in such amounts. Hell, linking up normal fission reactors would probably be more efficient than a Dyson Sphere. You'd probably need to dedicate a whole planet to such a project, but even that's not as extreme. I'd have to do the maths to be sure of that one, though...

I agree...
Also, its hard for me sometimes to accept civs that are half my population in NS that rp planet nations that have equivilent ships to super star destroyers... its a headache for me, cause I play a slow build up, I've barely built something close to a basic star destoyer in power...
*cries*

If you drain stellar matter you will shorten the lifetime of the star. If you take too much you can cause really bad stuff like explosive expansion into a supergiant or even an nova. The mass of the stellar material is compressing the core keeping it from expanding. Think of it as the little piece of metal holding the trigger for a mouse trap. SNAP!

Also, what are you going to use to remove basiclly uncontrolled fusion material that is hot enough to melt just about any material you use to build ships. The energy needed to maintain shielding to withstand the unfriendly enviroment would be trememdous.

Dyson spheres are so fragile you can easily damage them. There is so much area to defend you cannot protect it all from natural collisions. The gravitational field it would generate would attract objects like asteroids and comets into it's hull. If they hit just right, crack. The whole structure is weakened and you might get a total collapse into the white dwarf in the center.

The radiation the star at the center puts out would make the inside space of the sphere uninhabitable. Remember it would contain the total output of the star, including radiation, flares, and heat. You would also need to generate a lot of atmosphere to make a breathable layer.

I hope no one minded my Dysan Sphere thread from several months ago. Considering I still have it within my borders, it's interesting I've not had reason to bring it back up yet.

My version also functions as a gate between the Avian Lord's Ascended Planes and the Prime Planes the Gaians exist in. Course it's all also a completely Ascendant created superstructure, the star itself included.

I go into FT all out the ying yang myself, as all have noted. =^^=

If you'll all forgive an unknown newbie for resurrecting this thread months after the fact...

Has it occurred to anybody that the "world" of NationStates, containing over a MILLION nations - many of which have populations greater than the entire real human race - is so vast and varied that it must be a Dyson Sphere or Ringworld already?!

As for the physical and mechanical issues which make a Dyson Sphere impossible, consider this: Freeman Dyson's original concept (http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html) was not an unbroken, hollow shell enclosing a star (as depicted in Star Trek: TNG episode "Relics"); it was a spherical cluster of colonies which would all orbit separately, but be arranged so as to take maximum advantage of the central star's energy output. Each colony would either be a sealed, airtight space habitat, or an artificial planet massive enough to retain its own atmosphere.

In the above link there is also a description of SupraJupiter, which would provide a solid surface orders of magnitude greater than Earth's - but still not approach the dimensions, or impracticalities, of a Dyson Sphere. Perhaps we should assume that the world of NationStates is in fact such a construct, built around a Jovian-sized planet with an Earth-like orbital radius (such as the one known as Upsilon Andromedae C (http://www.exoplaneten.de/upsand/english.html)?) This concept, of an artificial surface surrounding an existing giant planet, has the added advantage of being habitable on the outside, just like Earth and unlike a Dyson Sphere, so that gravity would operate in the normal way and a suitable atmosphere be held down without the need for graviton generators...

Who thinks that NationStates should be officially declared a SupraJovian shell world?

The only problem with that is the world would also have super-Jovian gravity. Gravity is determined by mass, more mass=more gravity.

Gravity also depends on distance from the planet's center - and Jovian planets have a huge radius. Although Jupiter has 318 Earth masses, the gravity at its cloud tops is less than 3 times that at Earth's surface; a SupraJupiter shell could be constructed at a radius where the gravity is equal to Earth's surface value...

Yes you coudl do that and you ahve access ot massive amounts of energy from hte Hydrogen and heluim in the Joivian planets atmosphere, also if you take Jupiter as an example, you could use microwave arrays to transmit the energy to say Io and then have it radiate it back down as visible light.

Gravity also depends on distance from the planet's center - and Jovian planets have a huge radius. Although Jupiter has 318 Earth masses, the gravity at its cloud tops is less than 3 times that at Earth's surface; a SupraJupiter shell could be constructed at a radius where the gravity is equal to Earth's surface value...

Would that be inside or outside any breathable atmosphere? If the cloud tops in your example was 3X gravity, we would be outside the atmosphere, or damn close to it.

Gravity also depends on distance from the planet's center - and Jovian planets have a huge radius. Although Jupiter has 318 Earth masses, the gravity at its cloud tops is less than 3 times that at Earth's surface; a SupraJupiter shell could be constructed at a radius where the gravity is equal to Earth's surface value...

Ah, but the gravity is the only thing keeping the atmosphere intact.

Ah, but the gravity is the only thing keeping the atmosphere intact.

Exactly - just as it does here on Earth. So if our SupraJovian shell has a surface gravity equal to Earth's, it will be able to retain a similar atmosphere outside. (Or even a much denser one - look at Venus, with a surface pressure of 90 bars and gravity very similar to ours...)

I don't see your problem.

OCC: Another fan of Pandora's Star, nice, my tech is based of that book.

OOC: Please don't make that assumption. Some of us attempt to retain at least a modicum of believability. You are right, though; there are infinitely more practical and efficient ways of generating energy in such amounts. Hell, linking up normal fission reactors would probably be more efficient than a Dyson Sphere. You'd probably need to dedicate a whole planet to such a project, but even that's not as extreme. I'd have to do the maths to be sure of that one, though...

*Scratches head*

Er, well, the reason I built had nothing to do with power requirements (there were a few utilitarian reasons but mostly...), but more to do with a reason I know people like tend not to like.

We could and we felt like it so we did. It was a mistake, though, as I still only have one RP left here (Glares ominously at GZ), and Beta Station (my dyson sphere) kind of sits un-used except by a few trillion residents and a direct link with Alpha Station and Earth via...

Well, let's just say it isn't doing much.

That and we have a propensity for gigantic projects. Alpha station is a 30 light minute diameter particle accelerator that we use for instantaneous travel...well...to anywhere we might want to go.

Oh, and don't say they're hard to defend. Beta station is probably the most hardened and impregnable target this side of the Maginot line (:P). It really is, though. No one that doesn't have a major tech advantage over us is going to break in unless we LET them in.