[TML] Environmental domes

[Joseph Paul]

You might do better with figuring a suspension rig. Imagine a carbon fiber
tower in the center that anchors suspension cables (diamond rope?) that
connect  to other towers. Secured to the cables is your barrier material.
Tough and light weight it drapes gracefully over the cables. It can actually
be composed of several layers that supply filtration of air, radiation, or
liquids. Or not. It can self-repair to a limited degree and there are
contragrav robots for larger repairs. Need more strength? Reinforce it with
high tech fibers like SilkSteel (TM). This would function like rip stop
nylon.

Design this in concentric rings so that you have walls also and then you
have compartmentalization. You don't lose every one to a puncture.
The towers can incorporate airlocks at the top so that you can egress and
get to the space port. Some may have rotational dining facilities as well
for the view =)!

How big is a shire? Counties here (Indiana) seem to be about 400 square
miles or 20 miles on a side.

With this set up you don't need to worry about how large of a free standing
dome can be made. You place tower supports as close as you need to.

Joseph Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com]On Behalf Of Hans Henrik
Rancke-Madsen
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 8:35 AM
To: tml at travellercentral.com
Subject: [TML] Environmental domes


An old problem of mine has cropped up again. The TU is littered with
crummy worlds that nevertheless have sizable populations. Some of them I
put into sealed caves, some of them I put into arcologies, but some of
them I like to put under environmental domes, preferrably domes that are
large enough to have agricultural fields and sculptured landscapes -- maybe
even national parks -- beneath them. I'd like them to be a mile high and
cover an area the size of a... what's the American equivalent of a shire?

My problem is that I have no idea what the maximum plausible size of such
a dome is at various tech levels. I've thought about finding out the size
of the domes we can build on Earth today and then increase the diameter by
some factor (2? 3? 5? 10?) per tech level, but googling 'environmental
dome' gives me about 2 million hits, the first score of which are camera
mounts and hothouses...

Anyone know what we can achieve today and have any opinions about what
should be possible at higher TLs?



Hans
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