May 9, 2015 02:56 AM
http://listverse.com/2010/03/07/top-10-t...tructures/
EXCERPT: A megastructure would be the most expensive and greatest achievement in mankind. If you are a science fiction fan, you will probably know most of the items on this list, but if you are not, they are fascinating ideas that could, potentially, one day become reality. Be sure to add your own favorites to the comments....
10 Space Elevator: A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body’s surface into space....
9 Orbital Ring: This is another type of space elevator but one which revolves around the earth’s orbit....
8 Halo: [...] Halos are massive ringworlds, which feature their own wildlife and weather. The constructs resemble Larry Niven’s Ringworld concept in shape and design....
7 Globus Cassus: [...] conceptual transformation of Planet Earth into a much bigger, hollow, artificial world with an ecosphere on its inner surface. The proposed megastructure would incorporate all of Earth’s matter. Sunlight would enter through two large windows, and gravity would be simulated by the centrifugal effect....
6 Topopolis: A topopolis is a tube-like space habitat, rotating to produce gravity on the inner surface, which is extended into a loop around the local star. Topopoli can be looped several times around the local star, in a geometric figure known as a torus knot....
5 Stellar Engine: Stellar engines are a class of hypothetical megastructures which use a star’s radiation to create usable energy....
4 Matrioshka brain: This structure would be composed of one or more (typically more) Dyson spheres built around a star, and nested one inside another. A significant percentage of the shells would be composed of nanoscale computers. These computers would be at least partly powered by the energy exchange between the star and interstellar space. A shell (or component, should a Dyson swarm be the design model used) would absorb energy radiated onto its inner surface, utilize that energy to power its computer systems, and re-radiate the energy outwards....
3 Dyson Sphere: A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a “sphere” would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output....
2 The Alderson disk: [...] is an artificial astronomical megastructure, like Niven’s Ringworld or a Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant platter, like a CD or phonograph record, with a thickness of several thousand miles. The sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk....
1 Ringworld: Finally, the Ringworld, It is an artificial ring with a radius roughly equal to the radius of the Earth’s orbit. A star is present in the center and the ring spins to provide artificial gravity....
Bonus
Atlantropa: Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa, was a gigantic engineering and colonization project devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promulgated by him until his death in 1952. The Utopian goal was to solve all the major problems of European civilization by the creation of a new continent, “Atlantropa”, consisting of Europe and Africa and to be inhabited by Europeans. Sörgel was convinced that to remain competitive with the Americas and an emerging Oriental “Pan-Asia”, Europe must become self-sufficient, and this meant possessing territories in all climate zones – hence colonizing Africa was necessary.
The project never gained substantial support because of its fantastic scale and Eurocentric expansionism. Under the Nazi regime, the plan was ridiculed as it was against the idea of a Eurasian German Empire. The Italians never supported the idea, as their cities were so dependent on the coastlines. After the Second World War, interest was piqued as the Western Allies sought to create closer bonds with Africa and combat communism, but the invention of nuclear power, the cost of rebuilding, and the end of colonialism left Atlantropa technologically unnecessary and politically unfeasible, although the Atlantropa Institute remained in existence until 1960....
EXCERPT: A megastructure would be the most expensive and greatest achievement in mankind. If you are a science fiction fan, you will probably know most of the items on this list, but if you are not, they are fascinating ideas that could, potentially, one day become reality. Be sure to add your own favorites to the comments....
10 Space Elevator: A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body’s surface into space....
9 Orbital Ring: This is another type of space elevator but one which revolves around the earth’s orbit....
8 Halo: [...] Halos are massive ringworlds, which feature their own wildlife and weather. The constructs resemble Larry Niven’s Ringworld concept in shape and design....
7 Globus Cassus: [...] conceptual transformation of Planet Earth into a much bigger, hollow, artificial world with an ecosphere on its inner surface. The proposed megastructure would incorporate all of Earth’s matter. Sunlight would enter through two large windows, and gravity would be simulated by the centrifugal effect....
6 Topopolis: A topopolis is a tube-like space habitat, rotating to produce gravity on the inner surface, which is extended into a loop around the local star. Topopoli can be looped several times around the local star, in a geometric figure known as a torus knot....
5 Stellar Engine: Stellar engines are a class of hypothetical megastructures which use a star’s radiation to create usable energy....
4 Matrioshka brain: This structure would be composed of one or more (typically more) Dyson spheres built around a star, and nested one inside another. A significant percentage of the shells would be composed of nanoscale computers. These computers would be at least partly powered by the energy exchange between the star and interstellar space. A shell (or component, should a Dyson swarm be the design model used) would absorb energy radiated onto its inner surface, utilize that energy to power its computer systems, and re-radiate the energy outwards....
3 Dyson Sphere: A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a “sphere” would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output....
2 The Alderson disk: [...] is an artificial astronomical megastructure, like Niven’s Ringworld or a Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant platter, like a CD or phonograph record, with a thickness of several thousand miles. The sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk....
1 Ringworld: Finally, the Ringworld, It is an artificial ring with a radius roughly equal to the radius of the Earth’s orbit. A star is present in the center and the ring spins to provide artificial gravity....
Bonus
Atlantropa: Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa, was a gigantic engineering and colonization project devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promulgated by him until his death in 1952. The Utopian goal was to solve all the major problems of European civilization by the creation of a new continent, “Atlantropa”, consisting of Europe and Africa and to be inhabited by Europeans. Sörgel was convinced that to remain competitive with the Americas and an emerging Oriental “Pan-Asia”, Europe must become self-sufficient, and this meant possessing territories in all climate zones – hence colonizing Africa was necessary.
The project never gained substantial support because of its fantastic scale and Eurocentric expansionism. Under the Nazi regime, the plan was ridiculed as it was against the idea of a Eurasian German Empire. The Italians never supported the idea, as their cities were so dependent on the coastlines. After the Second World War, interest was piqued as the Western Allies sought to create closer bonds with Africa and combat communism, but the invention of nuclear power, the cost of rebuilding, and the end of colonialism left Atlantropa technologically unnecessary and politically unfeasible, although the Atlantropa Institute remained in existence until 1960....
![[Image: elys1.jpg]](http://m.cdn.blog.hu/bl/blugeek/image/2014/Jun-Dec/elys1.jpg)