The Banks Orbital: God’s Bracelet

The Banks Orbital is a ring-shaped Space Habitat over a million miles across with hundreds of times more living area than the entire Earth.
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Credits:
The Banks Orbital: God's Bracelet
Episode 445; February 29, 2024
Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Written by: Isaac Arthur & Mark Warburton
Graphics:
Justin Dixon
Mafic Studios
Orion's Arm
Steve Bowers
Udo Schroeter
Music Courtesy of:
Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field"
Taras Harkavyi, "Alpha and ..."
Miguel Johnson, "So Many Stars"
Lombus, "Cosmic Soup", "Hydrogen Sonata"

[@harbl99]

"Ringworld? Bit grandiose innit? Let's go with something that's a nice modest million miles across."

[@brianthesnail5452]

Or a smaller ringworm world

[@triflic7749]

P

[@AkkarisFox]

What about a 3D mandelbrot structure a million miles across?

[@triflic7749]

​😊@@brianthesnail5452

[@Celestial_Reach]

We only need a halo lol, a ring world is abit grandiose indeed. But a halo installation would be just fine

[@jhwheuer]

Now we need to just figure out where the four elephants and the big turtle goes.

[@maxpayne2574]

lol

[@be1tube]

If humanity lives long enough, this will happen

[@tompatierno5606]

As long as we get somebody like Esme Weatherwax, it will be worth it

[@imperialinquisitor510]

@@tompatierno5606 #Team Vimes

[@lgjm5562]

I thought the world was banana shaped. Sir Bedemir

[@JasoTheRed48F2]

I'm just gonna say it Mister Arthur, while your Fermi's Paradox and other style of episodes are good, the megastructure ones are the peak of this channel, in my humble opinion.

[@cosmictreason2242]

And upward bound. Which i kinda view as connected to the megastructure one

[@crimsonninja6995]

@@cosmictreason2242 Agreed - upward bound has so many neat ideas that I've never encountered anywhere else. Utilizing the supercool hydrocarbon oceans of Titan to run supercomputing plants in order to gain a 4:1 efficiency advantage over earth supercomputers is one of the really clever ideas that always stuck with me

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

​​@@cosmictreason2242yep, I like to think of Earth 2.0 as the channel introduction, transitioning into Upward Bound as the entree, and then Megastructures as the main course. Then Civilizations at the End of Time as being the dessert.

[@garface111]

Isaac would you consider doing an episode on the banks universe? Their ftl, human A.I. relationship, body modification, space habs etc? I'd love to hear your analysis of the concepts Banks brings to the table.

[@thesenate1844]

Hes not really a lore guy, but he will absolutely explore concepts if they are hard science, hes more about potential real life applications

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

@@thesenate1844 I think a video on The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove would be perfect for the Fermi Paradox playlist.

[@fiiral5870]

My favorite megastructure

[@antred11]

Mine are O'Neill cylinders. While presently out of the scope of our abilities, at least those don't seem like complete science-fiction to me.

[@dalel3608]

@@antred11 We are capable of making the smallest of versions right now with the tech we have.. it would just be slog to get it done.

[@antred11]

@@dalel3608 I know. Before we could embark on such an undertaking, we would first have to create the necessary infrastructure. Otherwise it would be prohibitively expensive.

[@garvdog3793]

When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?

[@wayfa13]

@@garvdog3793 no because I read about it in a book from the 70's =P ~ Ringworld by Larry Niven

[@sothasil7716]

"When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?"

[@aut0correkt545]

"Blinded?"

[@sothasil7716]

"Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?"

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

Halo is a pretty cool guy, Eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything.

[@oriontherealironman]

"Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?"

[@dSlayer6160]

Glad I didn't have to scroll much to find this comment

[@kaylzshter6153]

I love the Culture series so much. Banks' passing still hurts all these years later

[@aurigo_tech]

You used to show numbers also in text when talking about them. I must say I prefer that as in purely listening to them you quickly forget and I often find myself having to rewind a few seconds. Please bring that back in.

[@Monsmak]

28:00 Bro, can't believe that the truck driver, just kept driving through such a rare and special event. Like just pull off to the side of the road and enjoy totality for the few minutes it lasts.

[@custardgannet4836]

If i could live in any fictional universe it would be Banks Culture verse for sure.

[@jeffreyatlee8785]

And in the Culture too. Outside the Culture life seems exceptionally random

[@markmiiwurdz4016]

It would be an unknowable wonderfulness

[@davethompson3326]

@@jeffreyatlee8785 Elench?

[@davethompson3326]

"Lets all go lava rafting!"

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

Statistically speaking, I think one would be most likely to be in a hell in the Culture verse. Using that 'viel of ignorance' it might not be the best choice.

[@donwald3436]

I already ran out of Living Room, it's packed full of moving boxes!

[@Masaq_TM]

Best Sci Fi author ever. RIP Iain. My gamer tag is taken from Look to Windward. ☝️ ‘Don’t f*ck with the Culture.’ Love the channel. Kindest regards to you and yours.

[@wayfa13]

when I used to play EvE, I used Culture ship names where applicable :D

[@ApexHerbivore]

​@@wayfa13 Hahaha, same. My favourite was a GCU called "Poke It With A Stick"

[@ysfsim]

"... Cortana, what is that?" " That is another Halo" ( cough, choking sounds) ".. So thats what my father found. Isnt it some kind of weapon?" " Yes, and when fired it will cause destruction on a galactic scale."

[@icyknightmare4592]

"You will find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they wrought. Do not mistake their intent, or all shall perish as they did before."

[@xyreniaofcthrayn1195]

Not on a galactic scale, 1/7th the galactic scale.

[@ysfsim]

@@xyreniaofcthrayn1195 yes, that is technically true

[@xyreniaofcthrayn1195]

@@ysfsim yeah a single halo radius of destruction is 1/7th galactic, 7 halo's to go galactic, 9 to take the galaxy and the clouds Magellanic and the ark to bind them. Is probably a smarter comment to make originally.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@xyreniaofcthrayn1195 1/7th of the Galaxy is galactic scale. That's how engineers think. Magnitudes and all that

[@wstavis3135]

When Isaac started talking about disassembling Jupiter, all I could think was, "Well, he sounds like a Vogon now."

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I'm a better poet than a vogon... admittedly that doesn't imply much talent :)

[@cosmictreason2242]

No one ever died from listening to Isaac Arthur's recitation

[@getsideways7257]

He might sound like a Vogon, but that still does not alleviate the need to disassemble Jupiter at some point :)

[@patrickunderwood5662]

Iain M. Banks, my favorite SF author and fellow Scotch enthusiast. RIP.

[@dariustiapula]

"The Oracle promise us salvation!."

[@GleichUmDieEcke]

Were it so easy.

[@ysfsim]

"...you will find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they wrought. Do not mistake their intent!"

[@darkleome5409]

"This is not your grave. But you are welcome in it"

[@BrokenCurtain]

The funny thing about those orbitals is that in-world, they're considered backwater communities since the Culture is centered around their ships (which are also colossal).

[@cosmictreason2242]

Unlikely to be true in reality

[@BrokenCurtain]

@cosmictreason2242 Depends. If we're talking about a Type II Kardashev civilization that has enclosed its star in a Dyson swarm, then this civilization might construct a Banks orbital and consider that as its crowning achievement. However, the Culture is well beyond that stage. They also tend to be quite nomadic, which makes sense because stars aren't stationary either. So I'd say you're correct for Type II civilizations - but orbitals get downgraded when and if a civilization manages to move past that level. So it really depends on whether post-Type II civilizations can exist.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@BrokenCurtain it's kinda like saying cars are mobile so most people live in them whereas cities and cruise ships are backwaters by comparison. Doesn't make sense. Banks orbitals would both be mobile and the center of economic and political power

[@vi6ddarkking]

Honestly now that humanoid robots are truly leaving the lab. I do hope we go full Factorio the moment space mining becomes a thing. A star trek future is possible as long as our industrial and agricultural capacity far exceeds our needs. And we'd be able to finally focus on the megastructures like Banks Orbital to go further Factorio. They'd be out Pyramids of Giza or Eiffel Tower.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

This is the future we deserve. If we can hold it together for just a few more generations, we'll get there.

[@vi6ddarkking]

@@jengleheimerschmitt7941 And given how much we're investing into longevity technology And AI assisted medical research. We'll be there to see it.

[@user-qe2mt6he3g]

Okay, now going Factorio is an established term.

[@witheringliberal2794]

I don’t believe we’ll run out of living room unless we seriously revisit our priorities. Our population keeps crashing as wealth rises

[@Roguescienceguy]

AKA the halo. Comes with a free Master Chief

[@EvelynNdenial]

these are waaaaay bigger than halo, as he said bigger around than the sun. halo was in orbit of a gas giant remember?

[@submachinegun5737]

@@EvelynNdenialYeah but conceptually they’re still very similar by orbiting a larger body and the rotation causing a day cycle instead of surrounding a whole star like ring worlds

[@getsideways7257]

Please don't bring in silly Bungie games...

[@DeLorean58]

First thing I thought of when I saw the thumbnail, Halo.

[@CombatMosquitoTrainer]

Ringworld by Larry Niven was the first thing I thought of.

[@ASpyNamedJames]

Halo is a reformulation of Ringworld.

[@rakaydosdraj8405]

@@ASpyNamedJamesHalo is a Banks Orbital, which is a differnt approach (and much smaller) than a Niven Ring.

[@chrisgriffith1573]

One of the biggest problems with making giant constructions like a "ring world" is that what ever you make the ring from will eventually fatigue, or outright fail, graphene is not immune to the effects of radiation, heat and stress. Even if the material has the strength when its built, it will need massive maintenance. For something that big, you cannot simply replace the supports in the long term, you'll end up making the ring over and over and over. Even if you could, where is all that material coming from?

[@tony6795]

From yer mum

[@volentimeh]

You'd have an AI or near AI (don't want it to go HAL) in charge of continuous maintenance, even having a lot of the structure mimic a biological organism for replacement of structures in situ.. As for material, carbon is carbon, a degraded carbon I-beam has just as much carbon as a fresh new one (more or less) Recycling can be very efficient when you have un-tiring workers to pick through the garbage.

[@chrisgriffith1573]

@@volentimeh Its the bonds that bind that are the problem, not making them. It's keeping them. If they are all going bad all the time, then you have a serious issue.

[@shanerooney7288]

From elephants. There's plenty of them.

[@AbsolDorogan]

plus asteroids since the atmosphere is only on one side of the ring

[@iainballas]

One of the things I like most about Iain M Banks is that he spells his first name correctly. This brought to you by the group of people who grew up being called "Lane".

[@tompatierno5606]

Serial Experiment Iain Banks

[@captsorghum]

Let's all love Lain.

[@charlesjmouse]

Many thanks. I wonder if anyone has tried to properly model the environment and atmosphere of a Banks orbital, say one set up ro be as Earth-like as possible for comparison? I guess not as we struggle with the computing power to decently model one planets worth of space. But I'd be interested to know what unexpected effects one might be in for, and maybe how one might mitigate any of the more unpleasant ones. Yes, I fully expect the unexpected.

[@death_parade]

Indeed. Even Weather models on Earth require some of our most powerful supercomputers to run.

[@marxug1]

I favor sloping mountain ranges for the rims rather than walls - imagine the epic hike clear into space! Also, I’d love to hear you discuss the energy-intensive problem of just getting **on** and **off** these structures, given the 300,000 mile-per-hour tangential velocity.

[@AnonymousAnarchist2]

the tangental velocity is equal to the desired fall per second per second, or 9.8 meters per second or in MPH 21.924. You can escape with a bicycle. That was actually one of the funny concerns people had with bicycles when they where brand new, they thought that you might be able to double the force on your internal organs (you can) and destory them (it takes a looooot more force then double) With "spin gravity" forces really do not add up as they do with real gravity, they only act like gravity as you are activly rotating with the spin.

[@marxug1]

Gee, thanks AI BS… 🙄

[@englishcoach7772]

But to avoid affecting the inner living crust of the ring world, there would be special huge elevators for leaving the ringworld from the outer rim of it where ots energy arrays and landing docks would be.

[@blintorzabat5798]

Agree with you about the mountains... But the rotational speed gives you a boost when leaving the ring, and when returning from interstellar space, it means you just aim for the side which is receding from you, and don't have to slow down quite as much. A win-win!

[@marxug1]

@@blintorzabat5798 Yeah, I guess by the time we’re making Banks orbitals, we’ll also be making torchships and starships, and a measly 300,000 mph will represent only a helpful margin!

[@cannonfodder4376]

This was a wonderful video to listen to on my drive back from work yesterday. To think we could build such marvels. 😊 Luxury living indeed. Wondefful work Isaac.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@maxpayne2574]

But what if they won't let you have your guns there?

[@ProfessorJayTee]

@@maxpayne2574 Then remain in the primitive USA.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@maxpayne2574 they would. You realize each of these places will be politically independent of each other and thus allowv vast amounts of variation. The future is space libertarianism.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@isaacarthurSFIA on that note, would you consider as a topic, "geopolitics" of different levels of space development. Everybody talks about moon , Mars, earth and the belt. Ok but what about when we have a star lifting process, a couple thousand oneill cylinders, fully colonized hill sphere and orbital habitats around every planet with self sufficient manufacturing. There couldn't be centralized power (or could there be?) So would there be wide variation in political/economic systems depending on what habitat you're in or do you think that the natural development of society will converge on some being much more common than others? Is the future of space a large scale anarcho capitalism with small scale variations encompassing monarchism, mercantilism, all the marx variations etc, or did Alien get it right with all of us buying from the company store since monopolies are the real powers? Would be interested in your ideas and I'll try to remember to ask on a monthly community post if you don't see this

[@tonymccann1978]

Brilliant! So glad you made this video. Keep em coming, they're class. Banks is my fave sci-fi author, and your channel has inspired me to write also.

[@imperialofficer6185]

I think Banks Orbitals are the only kind of megastructure I'd prefer to planet living

[@Pystro]

18:36 No, you can't chain-link them. That will only work for one half of the orbit, but at the mid-summer point the "links" would need to pass through each other. Unless they are physically attached to continually twist the orientation of the orbitals, which would eliminate seasons.

[@BigZebraCom]

Oh Iain M Banks, how I wish you were still alive. 😢

[@ulrichwilsenach4411]

He is, just been recalled to Special Circumstances

[@freehat2722]

Any thoughts on protective fields to replicate the magnetosphere or atmosphere for solar winds / flares and asteroids? I'm imagining a lot of power being used for active protection as opposed to our current passive protection.

[@christophe5756]

Excellent! I always love it when you “go there”! This is your “jam”! 👍🏽👍🏽

[@magbuoys]

great video as always isaac

[@rJaune]

Hey, Isaac! Have you ever done episodes on how to deal with longterm Earth changes? Like Ice Ages, Supervolcanoes, or the appearance of a Large Igneous Province(a large area of erupting lava many many miles across that erupts for a very long time). Those are definitely things that we'll have to deal with in the distant future. Love this channel.

[@Pystro]

I would imagine that any sun-collecting mirrors would be attached to the stationary outer layer of ring instead of being lagites. The visual effect of that would be to give you one point-like sun overhead (at about a quarter of the brightness of the sun on earth) and two bright bands of "atmospheric glow" to the north and south (at 3 quarters the total brightness, but spread out over a large part of the sky). A clear Bank's day would probably have a similar vibe to a slightly overcast earth day; and a slightly overcast Bank's day to a heavily overcast earth day.

[@delphicdescant]

This is one of your more technical videos, and all the better for it imo. Megastructures are peak scifi.

[@samuelsten.p1584]

I can't help thinking how meteorites and micro meteors would affect an structure like this. Without a thick atmosphere to burn them or diminish their speed before they collide.

[@dundeedolphin]

Only recently discovered this channel. Superb. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@carlosandleon]

Everybody gangsta until people go antispin and start to float.

[@TheEldritchGod]

"Someday we're gonna run out of room." **Looks at plunging birth rates** "You don't say..."

[@seanhewitt603]

Thank you isaac. Your attention to detail and your dedication to this field, its above grade. Truly, you are a leader in thinking outside the box.

[@EricReed-xi8he]

Here because Banks

[@LoneEagle2061]

If you’re going to use a contra-rotating ablative shell to mitigate tensile strength requirements, you might consider fully enclosing some portion of it (33-50%). This would mitigate the temperature increase, and allow greater area for solar collectors; but it would also create a sunshade “night”. This gives you two types of night to play with and therefore allows the ring to spin more slowly (reducing the initial strength requirement); as each 48 hour rotation would have one occlusive night and one shadowed.

[@tonyportcullis488]

Megastructures are awesome but i would prefer residing on a smaller spin gravity structure that travels. Something about seeing whats "out there". One of my favorite scenes from LOTR was Bilbo leaving his home, running and yelling "Im going on an adventure!".

[@Mars2152]

To fix the longer day and night problems, one would merely need to make the ring with helical twists along the ring, which in turn would allow different day/night time periods. I am not sure about the gravitational effects on the helical twists, though, but I believe it would fix the issues if the plants and animals.

[@Mars2152]

PS, this is where ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) or RSI (Real Super Intelligence) will take us when we have huge robotic labor forces and no need for money we will seek higher purpose projects rather then greed based ones.

[@Ceradonaia]

I've never seen anyone else reference Orion's Arm! Been reading it for 20 years or so now - glad to see other fans!

[@DrToonhattan]

Wow. It must be a really long book.

[@benway23]

Thank you for your work.

[@Harmain57]

I need captions 😭

[@markwilliamson9199]

Terrific summary! I like the discussion of different climates at the same latitude. I live at 35 degrees South, but the wind from Antarctica makes our climate much cooler than you would expect in the North

[@sab1751]

When I watched this and the "endless river" episode on Nebula, I tought to myself, what a great storytelling or RPG setting.

[@lotus_emanon]

I hope you one day do an episode on the timescales Sci-fi civilizations work with. From the extreme high end of the Downstreamers (the entire black hole epoch - quadrillions of years, to have a single thought) to the extreme low end of the Culture (fight entire battles 50 light-years across in a few microseconds) 😅

[@palfers1]

Unless I've made a big mistake, a Banks Orbital could barely be constructed using the entirety of Mercury for the steel (about 10^18 m^3 volume). Note that the combined mass of the asteroid belt is in the noise here. The megastructure has a radius of 7.5 million Km, a width of 2 Km, and a thickness of 10 metres. That gives a surface area about the same as Earth's land (10^14 m^2). You can't build another Banks Orbital so easily! - you've used up the readily available mass.

[@mryellow6918]

Just syphon hydrogen from the sun and fuse it to iron

[@getsideways7257]

@@mryellow6918 Or just wait until the iron turns up on its own, problem solved :)

[@stevecam724]

You don't need the earth surface area because we use so little of it productively. You could go to section that are cabled to a rotating axle and wound in and out slightly to acount for dissimilar mass. The section would be cabled together around the diameter. Travel up and down the axle cables would be only 1/3ish the circumstance from anywhere else on the ring.

[@espinoth9913]

On a similar subject, I'd love to see a video about toroidal worlds. Given the sheer cosmic unlikelihood of one occurring naturally, such a thing would most likely be a flex of the stellar engineering prowess of an advanced civilization. It would also be a fascinating subject to theorize how it would effect any life that emerged on it's surface. Presuming one laid near-flat to the plane of its star's ecliptic, the polar rings of the planet would have gravity half again as intense as on its outer equator. Plate tectonics on such a world would also be fascinating, assuming it wasn't simply a stagnant lid, with the inner surface of the planet likely having much taller landforms than on the outer.

[@jonathanhensley6141]

I love how the visual effects show theses megastructures. Living on a megastructure would be incredible. I wonder if people would choose to live on megastructures or have to be moved once the population of earth became full.

[@Rosivok]

thank you for the eclipse, that was one of the best shots I have seen on the net.

[@lonjohnson5161]

EPISODE IDEA: NAVIGATING SUPERSTRUCTURES. This episode idea was spawned by something said in the current episode. It occurred to me that navigation isn't as easy as it might appear. In an O'Neill Cylinder, you can look up, see Gary's house and know you've another block to walk to get home. In something this big, you've got a good grasp of east-west, but exactly where are you? There is probably a GPS equivalent built in, but what if a population has forgotten (with intent or not) how to use it? As megastructures get bigger and weirder, how much more difficult does it get to know where you are?

[@millitron3666]

You still have 4 directions, east and west, and up-spin and down-spin. Up-spin would be in the opposite direction the ring is rotating, down-spin is with the rotation, east and west are perpendicular to them. I assume any ringworld like this will have a lot of buried infrastructure that could include nav-beacons. Alternatively if society has regressed and forgotten about these, celestial navigation should still work just like it does on a traditional planet.

[@ZenStrive52]

I imagine humankind will finally generally content of making millions of this kind of structure all over the solar system, instead of trying to reach the next stars

[@ThatSpecificIndividual]

A giant ring like that can have a lot more uses than for habitation. What other uses could it have? Like being a weapon?

[@hafor2846]

That's like looking at a modern day bucket wheel excavator and making it a weapon. Just build tanks and jets instead. You probably could weaponize it, but instead of making a big civilian design into an inefficient weapon, why not build actual weapons?

[@ThatSpecificIndividual]

@@hafor2846 I'm making a halo joke

[@hafor2846]

@@ThatSpecificIndividual And I'm ignoring it to talk about the potential of weaponizing a banks orbital.

[@Vejitatheouji]

@@ThatSpecificIndividual There's always gotta be that one guy that ruins the joke, eh?

[@commiedeer]

@@Vejitatheouji Hey, the name fits

[@brookestephen]

trouble with inner & outer counter-rotating rings is that you can't go from one to the other, from the inside because of the speed differential, and there's no way to ensure permanent frictionless bearings between them so they rotate against each-other smoothly.

[@ctrlaltdebug]

Maglev for frictionless bearings. Use a train track to transfer between the inner and outer rings. It just has to match speeds, and can function as a circumferential transit system.

[@brookestephen]

@@ctrlaltdebug uh that might work with a few tonnes, but we're talking gigatons, maybe petatons. Inner & outer rings are spinning fast enough to provide the same measure of artificial gravity, and the rotation speed increases with the radius of the habitat!

[@brentneumeyer3088]

You can cut the price by including a Particle accelerator around the outside. To make anti matter.

[@martinfitzsimons5884]

Deconstructing planets gets mentioned a lot. I always wonder when I hear this if the deconstruction of planets would have negative or unpredictable consequences on the orbits or otherwise of remaining planets?

[@mryellow6918]

If you can dismantle a planet you can definitely just move the messed up orbits into stable ones maybe even do it in a way to cause the planets to shatter each other and save you some time.

[@j-twd930]

If you can dismantle a planet, you also definitely have the power to put back the remaining planets back into place. Also, dismantling will probably not happen instantaneously, so I reckon it won't be too bad regardless.

[@cosmictreason2242]

Shouldn't. Cause the planet you're dismantling pulls earth sunward when it's on the opposite side of the sun and pulls earth spaceward when they're on the same side, so the forces cancel

[@shanerooney7288]

100% YES the orbits of other planets would be messed up. Orbital resonance.

[@martinfitzsimons5884]

@@shanerooney7288 Thank you :) Direct reply to the question :)

[@Ringworld2]

Shadow squares and attitude jets are all i need bruh. Dont question my scrith. U can walk right through it with a transmutation device

[@my_chi_is_rising]

imagine all the drinks and snacks on the banks orbital, isac u r d best teacher !!!

[@cwdiode4521]

Until now, i was a bit reluctant on space habitats, but i would absolutely love to live on one of these

[@williambontrager2349]

Transportation would be relatively easy on the two ring type orbitals. While more complicated than simply hopping off the spinning ring onto the other ring and then back on at the right time, it really is that simple and everywhere on the ring becomes a day or less away.

[@wk8219]

9:25 On a side note, I’m bummed that Neptune is not actual this color. Ever since the summer of 1989 when Voyager 2 passed this planet, it’s color has made Neptune a point of fascination. I still think we need a pair of orbiters though. One for Uranus and one for Neptune.

[@Roguescienceguy]

Retiring three F22 raptors would get that done

[@getsideways7257]

Bummed to say the least. "Remember when Neptune was blue?.."

[@seanbrennan5469]

Liked just cus I miss banks

[@kinngrimm]

Imagine swarms of AGI robots going into the void, reaching star systems, checking if life is not already present, collecting materials to build Banks orbitals, seeding them with hybernated seeds equally from plants, bacteria and later also higher lifeforms until maybe we would rise from cryo sleep.

[@Islandjud]

Reading The Player of Games as I listen to this.

[@czerskip]

I never overcooked my spaghetti, no idea what that means…

[@bruceritchie7613]

Beyond the engineering of an orbital like this I would think that there is many aspects of living on a orbital that would need a *lot* more design and engineering. For example, a magnetic field to defect cosmic radiation.

[@DanielGenis5000]

Reading the Culture series doesn’t give you too much fantasy engineering data on the Orbitals, but it’s a lovely idea.

[@knallpistolen]

Happy Arthursday.

[@thomaseubank1503]

I saw this thing about making a vacuum balloon using a shell made of synthetic aerogel strong enough to withstand 15 psi while being light enough to not weigh down the balloon. If this is possible then the land could be supported by these vacuum balloons if there is enough air pressure. If the habitat is only a dozen miles in diameter or so then there will be a heavier weighted environment bellow the ground. Half a mile to a mile of vacuum balloons built into the foundations of the land should hold it up.

[@BlackEpyon]

Personally, I like the "open" Island-3 design, where you look up and see not only see your neighbours 120 degrees up and downspin of you, but straight up you see the sun in the daytime, and the stars during the night cycle. You also need not have a counter-rotating outer shield, you only need to ballistically couple two colonies by placing them near each other and having them rotate in opposite directions so they maintain the same direction facing the sun.

[@blackterminal]

Thank you.

[@Les-cr9pg]

611 views in 13 minutes and comments aplenty... like this channel

[@robertfraser9551]

Majestic concept. Will need a new generation of ultra high strength materials. Back of the envelope calculations has the shell thickness roughly the equivalent Diameter divided by 10000 for current materials with margins and space damage etc included. For an equivalent diameter of 40000inches this means a 4inch thick shell with a cross section of roughly 1/2 million square inches. Its up to the material science fraternity to develop some seriously improved materials !

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

everyone is talking about boring shapes like rings, no one is talking about interesting shapes like gyroids or Schwarz minimal surfaces

[@DisentDesign]

This guy carries on…

[@GaryBickford]

Maybe something more in the range of 100 to 500 km, sized to rotate a simple fraction of 24 hours. This could give a reasonably adaptable daylight cycle. I'm curious about the gyroscope precession question. Would it be better to set up an annual tidal lock analogue? I think there would be a slight "daily" tide because the side closer to the sun would have a slightly larger "downward" force. So a "river" that ran all around the ring would have a natural current. But that would also cause a slight drag on the rotation that would require a compensating force.

[@ctrlaltdebug]

A 12 hour day might work out, as we have some cultures that take a mid-day siesta anyways. There are some arguments that humans evolved to have twice daily sleep cycles.

[@getsideways7257]

I barely can go on without a midday nap anyway...

[@BobfromSydney]

The thing that always bothered me was the hand-wave that centrifugal force standing in as false gravity would prevent massive atmosphere loss. For solids and liquids the centrifugal gravity should work fine, but as you go "up" the atmosphere the mean free path of any gas molecule will get longer and longer because the air pressure will decrease. Over time each molecule will bounce "upwards" towards the lower pressure area and eventually escape from the ring, with no actual gravity to cause it to return. This process will tend to accelerate as well, because as the atmospheric pressure starts to drop the mean free path will increase and this means air molecules will migrate "upwards" faster and faster until the air pressure in the OPEN system has equalised with the "outside" e.g. near vacuum. Escape velocity from Earth is 11.2km/s, any molecule that isn't travelling faster than this will end up returning (unless something happens to it). Escape velocity from [the "sun" facing side of] Ringworld is "anything above zero" since there is no net gravity to bring any particle back once it leaves the atmosphere.

[@Jimarass]

I don’t think it works that way. For the simple reason that real gravity works the same way. Items tend to move towards the center of earth cause of space time curvature (real gravity’s centrifuge) and the pull you feel is actually the resistance of floor towards your legs. For the effect you describe to take place, the air molecules have to move very close (at least half way) towards the CENTER of the disc, which is million kms above surface. The problem is for sideways forces. Random movements will cause molecules to move left or right and there there is no force to keep them in the structure

[@MarshallTheArtist]

Why wouldn't there be a glass container to keep the air in?

[@annoyed707]

Sure, there could be a glass container, but imagine the recycling deposit!

[@chappy4756]

It may be a dumb question, but where do you get all the dirt?

[@zell9058]

Cool, I work on the medical campus in Buffalo. Perhaps one day I’ll see Isaac out and about!

[@thelastword71]

I love this episode :)

[@marcelgrabowski5939]

Maybe bigger is not better, but it for sure is more epic, so with whole galaxies colonised, it is pretty sure that someone will build this thing! Really, at this point if something can be built, it will if just for the giggles of having the most unique stuff.

[@timothyg967]

Would love to a video fore one around Jupiter- would be a pretty sky

[@marikd.hammerheadred4600]

15:02 You have just prooven the existence of the Conspiracy Theory about the Sun Simulator (Solar Sun Simulator Patent US3325238A) that was turned on on April the 8th 😮. This is amazing. The white color of the light, the lower heat reception, the segmented light refraction in cameras filming the sun. What do we do now???

[@n1mbusmusic606]

I want one now.

[@Cmdtheartist]

Hearing you talk about Niven Rings and then Banks Orbitals, I do feel like one of those people on Love It or List It. I tell the realtor I want a four bedroom on the waterfront, and he says, with your budget, maybe a two bedroom a mile from the beach, that's pretty close, you don't want to be right ON the water.

[@cosmictreason2242]

I'll take a 10,000 square kilometer nature preserve as my summer home away from my 10 trillion population city

[@englishcoach7772]

It could sport a very sophisticated and fully integrated solar power array, that served not only to power the majority of the ring world, but to moving out like fans allowing external entry and departure of all manner of spacecraft. Bringing in off world commodities, alternative building material, immigrants and refugees. And or hosting mining detachments who would resupply and contribute to that economy.

[@kingsilvergrass8751]

Impressive.

[@Daniel-bh4fg]

Imagine rolling up on an alien solar system in a banks orbital! Now, that's an entrance worthy of the human species. Glorious

[@garyuntermeyer7976]

Beautiful family.

[@planetdisco4821]

There’s not enough Iain M Banks breakdowns on KZbin . The Culture is the direction I’d like humanity to take….

[@TheOneLostkin]

I still want a Ringworld. Have since I read the novel as a young lad.

[@Jimbojo]

The fastest commercial aircraft was the Tupolev tu-144. It may have been noisy, unreliable, dangerous and expensive, (in many ways a total piece of junk) but boy was it fast. Damn near 100 mph quicker in fact. It may have spent most of its life as a glorified mail-plane, but it still counts.

[@braggarmybrat]

Issac, have you ever thought about writing a hard sci-fi series? With your background I suspect it would be really good. Just a thought at midnight.

[@cosmictreason2242]

This is so much more influential

[@braggarmybrat]

He is influential as is, but that doesn't mean he can't have creative impulses that aren't worthwhile! Otherwise, I can riff off some of his videos and write a good book! 🤭