Developments on The Bonestell Project
I’ve made significant progress on the Bonestell model, having completed the propulsion, science, and liquid storage modules. With those out of the way, I’ve been focusing on the habitation module.
As background, I envision this vehicle as being quite large indeed, about 500 meters in length. I imagine the engine as nuclear-powered, requiring shielding and radiators. In front of the engine itself are a series of tanks, though I’m not certain what would be contained in them. Forward of the tanks, and protected by a shield, is a section containing various instruments and sensors, followed by a line of water tanks. Finally, we come to a massive structure consisting of the habitation ring and various microgravity workshops. The section is designed to spin, perhaps at one evolution per minute to reduce impact of coriolis effect, to impart gravity along the outer wall of the ring. Covering these elements is a massive structural dome clad in thick tiles of a heavy material serving as a shield for the vehicle as it plows through the solar system. I assume this would also be a good place for a storm shelter to protect people from coronal mass ejections, Jovian magnetosphere, and other nasty radioactive environments.
I didn’t really plan this out in advance; I tend to design and build as I go, recognizing this will inevitably produce challenges, especially because electrical wiring is involved. The tiles on the dome were not planned, for instance - but I wanted some texture and this seemed the best option, though a tedious one. I’m using a combination of random kit parts, plastic sheet and tubing, fiber optics and LEDs, and metal bits. There’s even an aspirin bottle and mouthwash screw cap involved.
I’m an artist, not an engineer. Still, my aim is to produce a scale model of a large vehicle that could cover vast distances relatively quickly (years) within Saturn’s orbit around the Sun (a navigational sphere about 1 billion km in radius). For humans to live in an artificial world for that long, a good deal of comforts will be required, hence the scale of the vehicle. I named it after Chesley Bonestell, an artist of some renown among architects, astronomers, and industrial designers with an eye for the future.
In any case, here are photos of the progress. I will be working on the dome for weeks to come, it seems…
