http://spacecollective.org/gabrielrud Fri, 18 May 2012 21:51:14 +0000 http://spacecollective.org/gabrielrud en http://spacecollective.org/gabrielrud/7572/Stapledon-Sphere http://spacecollective.org/gabrielrud/7572/Stapledon-Sphere Fri, 18 May 2012 21:51:14 +0000 gabrielrud 7572 <b>My personal visual speculation of a Stapledon sphere.</b><br /> <br /> <a href="http://gabrielrud.com/files/rend20000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/p4SNl9GX/1337403171/rend20000.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a><br /> <br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon" target="_blank">Olaf Stapledon</a>´s &quot;Star Maker&quot; contains the first known description of what are now called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere" target="_blank">Dyson spheres</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson" target="_blank">Freeman Dyson</a> credits the novel with giving him the idea, even stating in an interview that &quot;Stapledon sphere&quot; would be a more appropriate name.<br /> A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a &quot;sphere&quot; would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a technological civilization, and proposed that searching for evidence of the existence of such structures might lead to the detection of advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://gabrielrud.com/files/rend20315.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/p4SNl9GX/1337403205/rend20450.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a><br /> <br /> Since then, other variant designs involving building an artificial structure or series of structures to encompass a star have been proposed in exploratory engineering or described in science fiction under the name &quot;Dyson sphere&quot;. These later proposals have not been limited to solar-power stations. Many involve habitation or industrial elements. Most fictional depictions describe a solid shell of matter enclosing a star, which is considered the least plausible variant of the idea.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://gabrielrud.com/files/rend20912.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/p4SNl9GX/1337403249/rend20915.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a><br /> <br /> <a href="https://vimeo.com/42103608" target="_blank">Play Video</a><br /> <br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere</a><br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker</a> http://spacecollective.org/gabrielrud/7572/Stapledon-Sphere