[luf-team] Starships

Added an image to the Galactia phase section of TMP2;

This picture is my rough and speculative illustration of starships of the Galactia phase. They also represent aspects of Solaria era spacecraft, being based on the proposed NanoFoam composition suggested as a common basis of most artifacts of that period and 'grown' instead of 'constructed'. Three forms are shown; a passenger cruiser, an automated colonial seed carrier, and a possibly earlier external propulsion seed carrier/scout based on the Powell-Pellegrino anti-matter towing thruster concept. Note the difference in scales relative to the original Savage vision. Savage assumed pre-settlement based on large slower cargo vessels carrying large amounts of initial settlement supplies. In TMP2 we have the premise that NanoFoam carries integral to it the bulk of the civilization's technical potential and thus the pre-settlement phase is based on NanoFoam seed 'pods' that subsume and convert available local materials into suitable habitats autonomously and without the need for an infrastructure other than that based on NanoFoam itself. So we have a reversal of relative scales with the passenger carrier larger by virtue of more in-flight supplies and the need for a comfortable living space during a decade long flight and direct conversion to orbital habitat on arrival.

Posted to luf-team by: Eric Hunting, Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:02 pm