A Dyson sphere would be impossible to build as it is a shell that surounds a sun with an inhabited world living inside. To keep radiation levels safe, you would have to keep the distance at what we have now, 93 billion miles. Artificial gravity, an aptmessphere, and soil excetera. It would take hundreds of world resources to even start such a thing. It truly will remain a sifi thing.

Michael Song of Solomon

Chances are someone (or something) has already built one somewhere. We know what to look for anyway, a point source emitting large amounts of infra-red radiation (from the heating of the Sphere) and no visible light (because the Sphere blocks it). I can see radiation being a problem, our planet (or more correctly, our magnetosphere) shields us from potentiall lethal high enery protons and such. To create gravity you could probably start the whole thing spinning, as centrifugal (the correct name is centripetal) force and substitute for gravity. As for resources, that doesn't matter. You have (or will see) how big the Dom K'vash's empire is. They'd more more than enough worlds to mine to the core.

But who says you have to have gravity, sure, WE need gravity, but not everything out there is human!

I think they have more problems than would make them an option, for example the structure would be shot to peice by asteroids and such. You also block the solar wind, which could have problems (pressure build up inside the sphere perhaps?). Builing it as well is obviously a problem.

But think about it, you're harnessing 100% of the sun's resources, from even for a medium sized star such as our sun that a bloody aweful lot of free energy!

It's not impossible, it just has a lot of problems that an advanced race should most likely iron out. Remember at one point people thought that making a vehicle to travel through the air was impossible, and that travelling to the Moon is impossible (if you want to argue the conspiracy theory in another thread, I'd be happy to add my 2 cents)

Edited by - Zveroboy on 6/12/2004 1:49:31 PM

Dyson spheres would not need thousand of worlds, they would need just a pair of gas giants like jupiter( and I mean REAL gas giants, not those patetic Freelancer gas giants

The easiest Dyson sphere would be around a black hole. Even if you keep it far enough so it doesn't get sucked in, it can still be smaller than what you would need for a gas giant. The ergosphere around a black hole carries an immense amount of energy. If we could develop energy "carriers", we could send them from our Dyson sphere on a low "swoop" orbit to pick up energy and return

If polar mechanics was invented then building a dyson sphere would be easy but that stuff involves ripping a star into 10 pieces and then equaially dividing the energy into a black hole and then with small doses of matter into the black hole it would churn out vast surplies of metal and oxyegen

Also i think that that they planted a blackhole in the sun and used its waste resouces to develop a dyson sphere

(TO ALL THE EGGHEADS OUT THERE IF YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I SAID)

The guy with the mod prob

It was humans who dreamed up the idea. Why would any race, if they even exicist, want to build such a structure in the first place? It is not practical and could be attacked from any direction. Flights of fancy. *shakes head*

Michael Song of Solomon

About artificial gravity: Doesn't teh mass of teh sphere create enough gravity?
And spinning doesn't quite work imo. The top and bottom would still be weightless, where as the "equatorial" part of teh sphere would have the highest gravity. Therefore, only a small patch of the sphere will have the right amount o gravity for a man to survive.
ofcourse, over the centuries mankind will addapt and people from teh "equator" will be stronger then people from near the "top and bottom" of the sphere.

Did I just make sense? Woohoo

Oh, and FD is right imo. Just because it's possible it doesn't mean it's useful
The Ringworld (niven?) is a much better alternative imo.

Edited by - > Nickless < on 6/14/2004 9:16:49 AM

If its so impossible, that explains why the one in the game isn't real! From the outside if you go there with a high speed cruise mod, you fly past the edge of the sphere and out of the green cloud. Its actually a flat plate, but i haven't tried to go under it yet


Give a man fire and he'll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.- Terry Prachett

I have tried that. If you fly outwards from the main area, the surface suddenly disappears. You can then fly under it, and come back in, and you'll be trapped underneath.

Not to mention that when you go through the "opening" on mission 13, you miraculously appear near the center, with no exit in sight.