It was always marketed as airless worlds for Horizons. It was always discussed that future plans would include other planets but not in this season. It was always said that this would be done in stages because of how much work would be involved in achieving the fidelity that they wanted.
So I guess, in response to your title - yes, that is it.
All planets is the plan, not sure about rocks though, maybe season 5.
The day after the release of airless planets?
Not asking a lot there, at all. What did you want for Christmas? Double-jointed super model who grows her own pot, and owns her own brewery? Possibly with a like-minded twin sister? =)
Not asking a lot there, at all. What did you want for Christmas? Double-jointed super model who grows her own pot, and owns her own brewery? Possibly with a like-minded twin sister? =)
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Planets with (active) volcanism is also coming in Horizons at a later date. Planets with atmosphere is not planned this Season though although I suspect we'll see Mars/Venus/Titan like planets next season (maybe even gas giants depending on how generalized the atmosphere tech will be). Especially now that Star Citizen also threw their hat into the ring in regards to PG planets. 
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Atmosphere is not planned for season 2 ??? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
(maybe even gas giants depending on how generalized the atmosphere tech will be). Especially now that Star Citizen also threw their hat into the ring in regards to PG planets.
Not to be the devils advocate or anything but exactly how would you land on a gas giant which has no solid mass to land on... there would be no settlements nor any possibility to land, even less so to drive your SRV. Also, many gas giants have massive gravity so flying low (along surface or even within the gas itself) might even be suicidal.
They had envisioned doing this, because of the enjoyment of flying through huge towering cloud structures.
There is a solid mass at the center of every gas giant within our solar system but our chances of reaching it are slim at they very least even with probes.
Very possible to have floating bases within the cloud layers to extract the rare gasses/elements. These would have to be kept out of the furious storms that we see on each of the gas giants, these could be the biggest danger in the upper atmosphere - far more so than pressure or gravity.
The pressure will have to be taken into account as a space ship would not handle it very well, this altitude limit will no doubt be higher than the point at which gravity would overcome you're ships engines and pull you down further. The deeper you go the faster that pressure will pop the hull.
Yes there are issues but nothing that cannot be overcome int he name of resources for profit!
Gas giants are large, but not particularly dense, hence the gravity is not the issue. Achenar 3 has 6G of gravity, whereas Jupiter only has a gravity of 2.5G.
The real risk is the pressure of the gas and the wind - the top speed of a speed Cobra is 465m/s, or 1674km/h. Winds on Neptune have been observed up to 2,100 km/h. In short, if you don't hit it first time, you could end up either painted on the wall of the station or blown about like a leaf.
I guess if there were more moderate regions in the atmosphere, such as calmer regions in highly-banded gas giants, you could have floating cities. The tech for it is already 100 years old. We call them airships.
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No, I know Tinman understands; -meaning traveling through the massive upper reaches of clouds.
Wikipedia said:
So when you reach the solid surface, you are facing 10.000 Kelvin, and a pressure of 200 GPa (2.000.000 Bar).
That's 2039432 kg/cm² (or 29007547 lb/in² for you non-metrics) .. or 2039 metric tonnes of pressure per cm².
Your starship, and your little SRV, will either be burned to spacedust or crumbled together like a piece of ricepaper... or both.
You mean the starship that we fly into the corona of suns to refuel? You know, the part of the sun that it is millions of kelvin in temperature?
"I am a leaf on the wind... Watch how I soar" - Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Firefly)
You mean the starship that we fly into the corona of suns to refuel? You know, the part of the sun that it is millions of kelvin in temperature?
I actually learned something new by following up on what you said and reading a bit more about the Sun (and the Stars). I actually never knew the lower layers were cooler than the outer layers (corona). Seems a bit illogical at first and I never really gave it much thought.
From inner towards outer...
- Surface'ish: The coolest layer of the Sun is a temperature minimum region about 500 km above the photosphere, with a temperature of about 4,100 K.
- Chromosphere: The temperature in the chromosphere increases gradually with altitude, ranging up to around 20,000 K near the top.
- Transition Region: Above the chromosphere, in a thin (about 200 km) transition region, the temperature rises rapidly from around 20,000 K in the upper chromosphere to coronal temperatures closer to 1,000,000 K
- Corona: The average temperature of the corona and solar wind is about 1,000,000–2,000,000 K; however, in the hottest regions it is 8,000,000–20,000,000 K.
Guess our starships are made out of some crazy materials then... but how well do they stand up to pressure?