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capnhack — Dyson Sphere
Published: 2004-09-29 20:24:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 10829; Favourites: 96; Downloads: 1558
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Description
Heres a different take on the concept of a dyson sphere. For those who dont know, a dyson sphere is an enormous man made environment made of either ring(s) or a sphere with the radius of a planetary orbit. On the inside of this giant structure is a star which gives the environment its energy and warmth and light. See here for more info: [link]Instead of having one ring, as in ringworld or halo, this sphere has several all locked together at two poles. Night and day are created by the inner rings which are static, with the outer rings rotating around them. Rather than having day and night the same length as in ringworld, a person can choose whether they want longer nights (by living closer to the poles) or longer days (by living closer to the equator). This would allow for massive expanses of ground that is perfect for agriculture where the days are longer, as well as enabling the rings to have some kind of ice caps in order to create an earth like weather system.
Id be interested to know whether anyone has seen a dyson sphere of this design before, because i havent
Modelled and rendered in Cinema4D, tweaked in Photoshop.
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Comments: 29
Hello.i would like to use this in the SMH online. if there is a problem, please contact me.
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I think i once saw something similar, without the inner rings and fewer base rings. I think it was from some halo fanart, im not sure. But this is pretty well thought and made!
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To augment your explenation: A Dyson sphere can also be defined by a network of orbital satalites of sufficient quanity.
If you've ever seen the movie WAll-E, you might recall Earth was practically enclosed by artificial moons(Including Sputnik).... this in a way can also be considered a Dyson sphere....
Nice render though.
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Nicely done. I remember that Larry Niven (the author who first conceived of a ringworld) suggested the idea of nesting ringworlds rather than building a full shell, but I have never heard of joined ringworlds. It seems like the building materials wouldn't be able to hold up to the immense forces involved, but it is still a neat idea and an awesome visual.
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True. I was more worried about the structure breaking up at the poles because of the stresses involved in spinning up such huge structures; you'd get huge torsion stress if you didn't spin each ring up at exactly the same rate. But then, if you could create a material strong enough for the ring to hold together in the first place, this probably wouldn't be an issue. I guess it's kind of moot anyway, since your drawing is still awesome, but I'm a physics student, so I think way too much about these things.
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thanks
my thinking is that joined rings would be more stable than a single one. with a single ring if it slips to one side slightly (which could happen considering its only stable along one axis) then youd be pretty much screwed, but with a solid shell or joined rings youd get the same gravity being applied equally over all three axes. in reality the rings should get wider the further from the joint they are to make up for the extra mass at each '
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That's actually one of the slicker designs I've seen. Most of the searches I make come up with either Dyson Swarms or Dyson Shells, and the song I'm aiming to make really doesn't have that kind of image in mind.
The other design I rather liked wasn't a far cry from that transit system in the movie Contact (or this design either). One where there would be two stationary rings, one vertical and the other horizontal - Lattitude and Longitude rings. Within them would be two rings connected at the poles and rotating in opposite directions. Outside the Lat/Long rings would be two more that also spin in opposite directions. On the inside of each ring would be a belt of energy collectors (solar arrays or the like). Of course, this idea doesn't function as a habitat, but rather a single-purpose generator that would relay its collected energy to series of sattelites aligned with both poles, the center sattelite taking the bulk of the relay and dividing it amongst the surrounding sattelites which will then relay it to the habitat in need of power (large ship, station, planet).
And the technologies are already available, or not far down the road. It's just a matter of having enough resources and large/precise enough ships (or controlled ring boosters) that could safely align the rings around the star.
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thanks for your comment and the watch
ive never thought of using a dyson sphere purely for energy generation, thats a pretty nice idea. i might have to nab it for a future pic hehe.
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Glad I spurred the idea. Just know that I'd have hungry eyes for it as album art. I'm watching, after all...
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this design is intresting
how you would generate gravity with this system though ?
because with rotation you couldn't generate gravity in the whole complex
oh btw nice 3d rendering
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thankyou
with such an enormous structure each ring would create its own gravity well without any rotation. it doesnt matter whether people are on the inside or the outside of the rings because the gravity would be the same (just as you dont weigh less during the day than you do at night on earth, the suns gravity well doesnt have a large effect on the gravity well of the earth itself).
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aah this is a solution of course
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a link to your awesome piece here was recently posted in the comment section of my latest deviation concerning viable alternative power sources for the earth.. heh...this is waaay out there but a hope for the future eh?
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hehe yea this is at least 500,000 years into the future unless we gain some technology fast. youd have to disassemble an entire solar system to build something like this. thanks a lot for the comment and thanks more for the fave
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hrm, a good model for an interesting concept, this is something i would expect to see in publications such as scientific american, to help explain to semi-lamens people a concept. very well done illustratively, and good rendering, makes the concept come through quickly and easily. an animated tour would be really cool, seeing it from the outside and then zooming in on parts for explanation. showing the little vilage moduals and what not that could exist on it.
so what would the weather system be like?
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the weather would be pretty much like earth. to get an idea of the scale of it, each of those little blue dots would be about the size of the atlantic ocean, so within each area youll have wind and water currents, clouds caused by mountains, and however much sunlight and nighttime depending on where along the ring you are. the one thing that would have to be entirely artificially created is tides since there is no moon.
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I really love this, it one of my favorites in your space series. I especially love that its so unique just like you. Wonderful creation and thank you for explaining it to me.
and I'm not biased when I push the 
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Excellent take on a Dyson sphere..only Dyson sphere I have seen was in a Star Trek movie, but didnt look like this one at all!
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thanks. the star trek one is what everyone sees when they think of a dyson sphere, but its really not scientifically sound. thats why i decided to make a few changes.
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This one I really like. Not only is the modelling great, but I love your idea of several rings locked together.
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thanks. its a very simple model, but the texturing is a bit more complex. its not so easy to envision the scale of something like this heh
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turned out really good cap.
glad you decided to upload it.
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thanks. i think i might do some alterations to detail and try to make a shot from ground level on one of the rings.
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makes me remember playing the single player section of Freelancer...
you travel to a alien world that uses a Dyson Shell....neato picture
-pix
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ah, i never got round to playing freelancer. i should some day..
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