On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 01:46:29PM +1000, Paul van den Bergen wrote:
the biggest drawback for both the Niven ring and the Dyson sphere is there is no gravitational attraction inside the ring or sphere to the sphere - only towards the sun, or only on the outside....
i'm surprised that nobody's mentioned Culture Orbitals yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_%28The_Culture%29 they're much smaller than a niven ring, they orbit a star (and rotate independently) rather than encircle it - slightly tilted to get a day/night cycle as the orbital rotates. They have an AI Mind located at the "hub" craig ps: i want the culture to come rescue us humans - and our world - from capitalism. also want neural laces, mind backups, body changing, robot bodies, utopian technosocialism, AI ships with great names, and more. after 40+ years of reading science fiction, the culture is the first SF universe I actually want to live in. -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>