FYS: More Ring Calculations

[jeriendhal]

So, if the Ring is built at Geosynchronous orbit it's 35,786 km in the air and has a circumference of 264,924 km along the inside edge. Round that up to about 265,000 km to allow for the walls holding the atmosphere in. [1]

Make the width of the Ring an even 1,000 km and that gives us a surface area of 2.65 million km, a bit over half of the total surface of the Earth.

Which is kinda... small.

I'm looking for a BIG Ring, deliberately designed to have enough elbow room for both future population growth and keeping factions that really can't stand each other well apart. Upping it to 3,000 km would do the trick, giving us a nice 7.95 million km of surface area.

The problem is, I need to figure out what the Ring is going to look like from the Earth's surface, because the wider it is, the more screwed up the ecology below is going to be for having a near constant shadow around the Equator.

Actually what I need is a heavily modded version of the Starry Night program, but I don't have the faintest idea where I'd get that.

Alternatively I'll need a bigger circumference, which may be a more sensible idea, since the higher it is the lesser the effect of the width, and the thing has to be rotating anyway to keep a nice 1 g gravity on the inner surface.


[1] The Roof could hold it in as well, but the Groupmind doesn't take chances.

Comments

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

Remember that the majority of the Earth's surface is ocean, desert, frozen tundra, etc.

Is the majority of the Ring's inner surface usable/habitable? I would imagine that the Groupmind can pack a lot more people into a square mile than the average for Earth, without being uncomfortable.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I imagine about a fifty-fifty split on land to oceans. For one, large sea going mammals like whales will need a lot of room to play, and the ocean's large heat sinks will help moderate the weather on the Ring.

Also some folks will want BIG moats between themselves and everyone else.

In terms of space used, the Groupmind could be very efficient if it wanted, but it prefers to have folk spread out further than on Earth, to at least attempt to keep people from mass organizing against It.

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

You can also have layers of rings. Build more levels above the base level, or have "underground" levels below. The same strategy we use on Earth - when we can't expand horizontally, we expand vertically.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Yes! And only the top few metres of ocean really counts. Have a dozen sub-basements, each with a few metres of water on the floor, with LED illumination or light pipes bringing in solar energy, to keep the plankton happy. The layers of water will stop cosmic radiation and high-velocity debris. The only bits of ocean needed in the top layer of the ring would be for decoration, boating, and habitat for sea mammals. Assuming the groupmind didn't leave them to play in the recovering oceans below, after removing the filthy humans.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I might have that in substructure, but I think the Groupmind will have the humans on the surface. It's read all those books about underground dystopias too. :) Definitely be useful for oxygen and plant production though.

There will be a few sea mammal pods available for exhibit, and to recover the population while Earth's oceans are cleaned up.

[kodi]

At the current distance, it could be 300km wide and no part of the earth would ever completely lose sight of the sun. So... A little more than three times higher up, and the worst anyone on earth has to deal with is penumbra from the 950km wide ring that gives you your desired area. And since that penumbra is sweeping up and down across the earth every day of the year except two, it shouldn't be that awful.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I think that'll work. Gonna be a LONG ride on the space elevators though. :)