UPGRADE 01A on YouTube

See and read it all here and now.

Animation on the UPGRADE01A YouTube channel. Read other information here.

Science fiction and politics is covered mostly at this space-time, but every category listed is mentioned in a blog, story or commentary here.

The free exchange of ideas, hopes, dreams, goods, services, peace and love should prevail. Education is alive and free online and in the world’s libraries.

#OccupyLiberty

 

The Station

The Station

By David Saxton Ullery

for: Upgrade 01A

Note: Some of the text is taken from the story “Upgrade 01A” (inside square brackets) and the rest is meant to expand upon “The Station” in greater detail.  The reader can expect this post to expand over time, including adding links to words within this post that are meant to add additional information.  In fact, virtually every post or page on this site is somehow related directly or indirectly to the central story: “Upgrade 01A”

[Thanks to polar meltdown, the world’s oceans had supplied all of the water needed to make the Station both necessary and possible! Large amounts of water were required for the huge space station’s completion. The station was ideally located for both military and civilian needs, but it still required vast quantities of water to make it livable for most humans. Meanwhile, the space station was largely populated by androids and certain cyborgs. Other cyborgs and humans were for the most part confined to certain areas already protected, but they could venture out to other sectors if they were willing to wear rather heavy coveralls, and a heavy-duty space helmet. Even with all the protection, visits to unprotected areas were limited to a maximum of five hours. Still, the current status was looking pretty good, already 13.31% of the Station was completed with virtually zero cosmic ray bombardment.]

…The Station was essentially several loosely integrated space station discs (19) contained within a gigantic nearly spherical protective skin, or outer shell. The outer shell was capable of operating as an independent space station on its own… One huge disc was in the center, spanning nearly the entire diameter of the skin, yet able to function independently of the outer shell, as were the nine progressively smaller discs below and above. Each disc was modular with separate layers or floors, with gaps between each floor, but they were connected …

The entire, nearly spherical station was huge, with a diameter of over 41 kilometers across, so there was still plenty of room for the small population to roam within the completed upper and lower sectors, in spite of the its extremely thick, partially transparent and partially translucent outer walls. The living areas were multi-layered, and multi-floored discs and rotated deep within the protected outer structure, with the successively smaller upper layers moving synchronously with the central layers, providing constant artificial gravity on nearly every disc and every floor within the layer.

The center disc was by far the widest (forty one kilometers), with the outer-most floor being the by far the largest with a very high “ceiling”, just over three kilometers high. It was far from being completed. Huge virtual windows within this level (and others) provided extremely high-resolution views of space from outside, with an appropriate amount of redirected and pleasantly filtered sunlight, which provided an artificial day. A huge “outdoor” park complete with a small lake, and stream was planned for construction at this level, with the project to begin in a little over three years. Some day, hopefully within the next several years, the lake would be full of fish, ducks and paddleboats.

The upper two layers did not rotate with the rest of the station, and in spite of their relatively small size, still provided plenty of room for several zero-gravity laboratories, special manufacturing factories, and even a sizable recreation area where humans could literally fly about. Still another layer was capable of varying rotation speeds and was used to “grow” and self-assemble many useful products – some for export back to Earth.

Very large spaceports were located at the north and south poles of The Station. An opening at both poles could be sealed with a gigantic circular, inward sliding door, but the huge kilometer-wide openings were normally left partially open, leaving plenty of room for military (south pole port), industrial freighter, commercial (north pole port) space craft, and the tiny “pleasure crafts” – like Jacobal’s space bike to come and go.

Huge zero gravity elevators provided transportation of goods, with smaller units for people, and both located at the central, non-rotating hub. Each floor faced outward, toward space, so people’s heads were always facing the center of the disc while they were standing or sitting. In addition to all of the elevators, small, automated vehicles provided highly efficient, zero-gravity transportation between and around the relatively small gaps between each disc, thus providing swift movement between any of the several discs, the non-rotating hub, and access to the outer “skin” of the station. Several large and small elevators connected each successive floor within a single layer.

[Fortunately, wetware had largely solved the bothersome cosmic ray problem, but not completely. The Station still needed several layers of various materials separating layers of water: purified water, saline water, and even natural ocean water (complete with marine life). The materials were the new super ultralight, ultra-strong, meta-metallic nano-hybrid transparent and translucent composites. Each layer was extremely thick and blocked a significant percentage of the harmful cosmic rays, but the water was still required to complete the job as well as to supply the huge space station with drinking water, protein (from fish), fuel production, waste management, and so on.]

© All rights reserved, with the exceptions given on the home page. In short, feel free to use this material in any public URL with “.com”, or “.edu” domains for non-profit purposes. Please link back to whatever you reference.