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Hard Science Futurism: What types of theoretical prefabricated materials would the first stellar generation ship carry to construct an O'Neil cylinder upon arrival? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Assuming we are talking about an era when Sol has a thriving space industry and the Solar system is broadly colonized. Current materials science supports structures up to 8 kilometers in diameter, and if large scale graphene production is possible, up to 100km in diameter, at least according to Isaac Arthor.

I am wondering what resources would be difficult for a colony ship to reproduce in-situ on an one way trip to the first interstellar expansions of humanity. I picture a true generation ship might be primarily designed around the transport of some of the largest prefabricated sections of a future centrifugal spin gravity habitat.

Using hard science to speculate, what types of materials and components would only be available with the massive industry present in humanity's original home?

I picture the main outer ring frame structure of an O'Neil cylinder, like some kind of curved beam, would be prefabricated and sent in a few pieces for later assembly. If the O'Neil cylinder was to be 8km in diameter, 3 pieces would make the generation ship at least 5.7km long.

What is practical to transport assuming fusion is in the cards, as are self replicating drones for resource extraction in a region like the astroid belt, and assuming planets are resource poor gravity prisons we avoid in favor of mobility?
How might carbon get utilized for large structure fabrication in space as far as processes?
What about metals and space based fabrication. How can you picture the production happening in ways that would only be possible in a highly advanced space based economy?

I know this is highly speculative and I hope the mods will let it fly to ask this. I know most nerds are curious about this kind of thing. I'm only interested in the most conservatively realistic of hard science fiction/futurism.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why ship pieces instead of shipping manufacturing capability (nano 3D printing etc) and use resources at the end point? By then presumably we've got asteroid mining down, no?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it would likely be similar to engineering materials today. The highest performing materials are very difficult to manufacture and we are talking about pushing them near their limits. I think a lot of the substructure will be made in-situ, but I think the most stressed parts of the main structure will require the largest scales of manufacturing. Like Sam Zeloof made a chip fab in a garage, so why doesn't he start producing the next Nvidia GPU. It is that kind of difference here. A lot can be done there, but nothing like what can be done on the cutting edge of what humans are capable of making at out largest and most advanced facilities.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Fair cop.