Subject:
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Re: The "geography" of local space
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 17 Nov 1999 23:20:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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666 times
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"John J. Ladasky Jr." wrote:
> Hi, Tim,
>
> Tim Courtney wrote:
>
> > Yeah. I'd just need maps of the Sol system, Alpha Centauri, and Barnard's
> > Star and how they relate to each other as far as distances go for
> > Zacktron. Most other stuff is unexplored space to the Z universe. But a
> > useful tool.
>
> Maps? You mean, with planets? Wouldn't we all like to have that! I can provide
> brief summaries of what we know about these three star systems -- though you
> probably already know all you need to know about Sol.
>
> -----
>
> We don't know yet whether such planets actually exist! In recent years, you may
> have been hearing in the news that planets have been discovered orbiting other
> stars. ...
Apparently they actually got occlusion readings from a near star in the
last week--by "near" I'm talking ~40pc. I can find the article and the
star name, but it's one of the HDs (that narrows it down to several hundred
thousand objects....;) ).
> Anything else in Zacktron is unexplored space? Well, the next three (known) stars
> out from Earth are two more dim red dwarf stars, known as Wolf 359 and Lalande
> 21185; and then, the brightest star in our sky, Sirius.
>
> I won't swamp you with the details of my search through the catalogs for nearby
> stars that are most likely to allow human habitation (or other life like us). But
> none of the very nearest stars are that great. The Alpha Centauri system is a
> possibility, however there is the problem of orbital stability. After our own
> solar system and Alpha Centauri, the three next closest candidates are Tau Ceti
> (distance = 3.647 parsecs), Eta Cassiopeiae A (5.953 pc), and HD 191408 (6.052
> pc). You would therefore need a MUCH bigger map to encompass just five plausible
> systems for life as we know it.
Hmmm...what's happened to E Eridani, the 3pc K2 star, and the 61 Cygni system? If I'm
not mistaken E Eridani was the original target of Project Ozma and is believed (as oh
so many are) to have an exceedingly small companion, on the order of 5% of the star's
mass
orbiting at approximately 8AU.
> I just revisited your pages over at zacktron.com. I had forgotten that you
> already had a working time line that runs about two centuries into the future.
> Cool -- though it's a little depressing that humans start slugging it out among
> the stars no sooner than they arrive!
That's what makes it plausable. ;)
> Your models are cool, and beautifully rendered. Still, from the data you provide
> I'm not sure where the models you show fit into your story line. And you have
> one-person vessels, about the size of a mini-van, that can travel at three times
> the speed of light? Whoa. Things got high-tech in the Zacktron universe awfully
> fast! Not enough time for my big, clunky Classic Space models.
It's interesting that Tim was discussing his Legoverse in terms of "closed" vs. "open"
storylines--the venerable storyline of mine, which originally involved several other
people with whom I've since lost touch, was similarly endogamous and wary of "outside"
impositions on it. I've continued to grow it, but I've never converted it into
electronic text--if only because since I've had access to the medium I haven't had the
time! So it's on many pieces of paper and on a handful of photographs and drawings.
I like the models on Tim et al.s' site; and the Peregrin-Westar vessels I first saw
some time ago.
I'm in the same boat as John--my clunkier models aren't superluminal, nor are most of
the fighter craft, but they require a "carrier" or "fold tender"--but my
superluminality isn't measured by c. so much as by range and gravity-well folding
(e.g., proximity to the target star that a drive can attain--a lower-power drive will
dump a ship outside a star's heliopause and it would have to enter the system in the
traditional manner, but a ship would have to fold *from* outside a star's heliopause
in any case). The "fuzzy fizzix" involved are interesting, but probably very loosely
translated from reality; but it does add an element of subluminal travel to the
overall universe.
I actually still make models for that timeline/spaceline, which has now become a
hybrid of the original and another that I was originally working up for publication
long ago during my (abortive) SF artist days--I needed to eat, so back to college for
me. (Then why the heck did I choose history?!? Shoulda stayed in biochem or
palaeo...but I don't have the patience for titration, and I have an unsteady enough
hand that I'd end up covered in pyridine one day and rue my entire life. ;) )
I'm still impressed with http://www.marsbase.com, although it's been scaled back from
what it was--and I love the way Tim et al have organised Zacktron; it's technically
"cool" but not overdone. One of these days...sigh. :) Well, I got the naval vessels
up (not "nuclear wessels" but WWI/II types) on a s/Spartan page so anything's
possible.
-Lindsay Frederick Braun
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/ships.html
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The "geography" of local space
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| This thread just keeps going and going! (...) Right. Lindsay is referring to HD 209458. Catchy name, huh? 8^) The Doppler shift research team that I mentioned in an earlier post predicted that HD 209458 has a planetary companion. The object is (...) (25 years ago, 20-Nov-99, to lugnet.space)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The "geography" of local space
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| Hi, Tim, (...) Maps? You mean, with planets? Wouldn't we all like to have that! I can provide brief summaries of what we know about these three star systems -- though you probably already know all you need to know about Sol. ----- Alpha Centauri, (...) (25 years ago, 17-Nov-99, to lugnet.space)
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