Took me a few moments just to work what to call this topic, and I apologise here at the start if you find this post too long and you couldn't be bothered to read it.
I have been wrestling with the idea that our intrepid ships have huge greenhouse like slabs of material between ourselves and the outside space. I am going to call them windows and refuse to accept they are indeed made of glass as we know it.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I want at least a minimum of two thick skins between me and the outside space. At the very least, I think I want self-sealing skins to protect against micrometeorite punctures. A bathysphere might be better for use in deep space, constructed to keep the pressure in, rather than the pressure out. Which brings me to windows (be it transparent steel, some imaginable force field or other construct).
Windows to see out, and the Bathysphere problem has a perfectly good solution, very small ports with very thick multilayered optics to let light in, but keep the outside out.
How many windows does a submarine have????
Now this game, Elite Dangerous, is set at some time in the far distant future, we have cracked light travel, and pippins, we have mastered to some extent, vector thrust computer controlled systems, systems with life support and all that, but we still have something that looks like and behaves like glass in the huge windowed area in front of the pilot. I know it is glass as when mine broke, it left sharp edges and all the air rushed out leaving me something like eight minutes to establish death.
In the future, surely there will hundreds of tiny cameras dotted all over the exterior of the hull enabling me to see in any direction at the flick of a switch. I want to be cocooned inside some double safety skinned steel behemoth, a matt black exterior to hide me safely from prying telescopes, and able to see out in any direction, with enhanced digital zoom, the ability to see in other spectra, such as infrared, magnetic and gravity. I don't want to be so very vulnerable behind a plate or two of gimped glass and only have a Face Forward view. These are spaceships, not WWII aeroplanes...
I want to see if any part of the ships outer skin has been damaged, need to see if the external navigation lights are on, is my gear all down and intact, or down and bent to heck and back. External views are a must, hey, they even have external live displays on passenger seats in modern fixed wing passenger aeroplanes. I want that on my ship in preference to a window...
I have been wrestling with the idea that our intrepid ships have huge greenhouse like slabs of material between ourselves and the outside space. I am going to call them windows and refuse to accept they are indeed made of glass as we know it.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I want at least a minimum of two thick skins between me and the outside space. At the very least, I think I want self-sealing skins to protect against micrometeorite punctures. A bathysphere might be better for use in deep space, constructed to keep the pressure in, rather than the pressure out. Which brings me to windows (be it transparent steel, some imaginable force field or other construct).
Windows to see out, and the Bathysphere problem has a perfectly good solution, very small ports with very thick multilayered optics to let light in, but keep the outside out.
How many windows does a submarine have????
Now this game, Elite Dangerous, is set at some time in the far distant future, we have cracked light travel, and pippins, we have mastered to some extent, vector thrust computer controlled systems, systems with life support and all that, but we still have something that looks like and behaves like glass in the huge windowed area in front of the pilot. I know it is glass as when mine broke, it left sharp edges and all the air rushed out leaving me something like eight minutes to establish death.
In the future, surely there will hundreds of tiny cameras dotted all over the exterior of the hull enabling me to see in any direction at the flick of a switch. I want to be cocooned inside some double safety skinned steel behemoth, a matt black exterior to hide me safely from prying telescopes, and able to see out in any direction, with enhanced digital zoom, the ability to see in other spectra, such as infrared, magnetic and gravity. I don't want to be so very vulnerable behind a plate or two of gimped glass and only have a Face Forward view. These are spaceships, not WWII aeroplanes...
I want to see if any part of the ships outer skin has been damaged, need to see if the external navigation lights are on, is my gear all down and intact, or down and bent to heck and back. External views are a must, hey, they even have external live displays on passenger seats in modern fixed wing passenger aeroplanes. I want that on my ship in preference to a window...
