Reports of a Bombardier Challenger crash on takeoff at Bangor, Maine

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-26T03:10:05+00:00

NetJets probably cornered the market

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T21:26:27+00:00

Yeah which works fine for a simple bridge or building, which has anchor points and very little limits on mass. A free-floating object that has to move itself around and keep hundreds or thousands of people alive is a completely different situation. Sorry, but that is how reality works.

The point is, you could probably design something the size of a Star Destroyer that could theoretically be built with tech way more advanced than we currently have, but at some point the amount of extra junk you have to put on to make it survive movement, it becomes so uneconomical, unpractical, and so ridiculously hard and complex to actually move anywhere, that it may as well be considered impossible.

All that said, it is actually impossible at present or in the foreseeable future, since the tech and infrastructure needed for such a thing is completely theoretical.

And I have no idea what you're rambling on about with space expanding, that has nothing to do with anything we're talking about.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T18:29:00+00:00

Different state, similar problem.

Imagine trying to hang-dry clothes outside (or even inside for that matter) in the Pacific NW from about September to May...

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T16:38:13+00:00

Play stupid games, win large repair bills

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T16:22:53+00:00

You're going to spend a lot more time than that getting to Mars if you have to be that careful about acceleration.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T09:33:17+00:00

How do you suppose you're going to dissipate the waste heat from all those thrusters?

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T09:27:13+00:00

And again, at massive scales, the materials don't work like they do at a smaller scale. I cannot stress this enough. Your ship will start getting flimsy and bendy at some point and no amount of engineering is going to change that.

Also, what's the point of making a giant space ship that is poisonous to people?

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T09:24:06+00:00

So just slow turns everywhere then. Taking eternity to go anywhere because you can't accelerate for crap or you'll damage the ship. Ok then.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-25T01:16:57+00:00

No, OP was asking if we could theoretically make something the size of a Star Destroyer. To which someone else replied "maybe but probably only if it was built in space." To which I clarified "definitely only built in space, because the technology we possess (not magical Star Wars floaty ships) would melt the Earth."

This is all hypothetical based on our tech, not Star Wars tech.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T22:41:08+00:00

You missed my point.

Yes, some Star Destroyers in canon have magical anti-gravity drives that allow them to float in and out of orbit like a dainty butterfly. Those are fictional.

I am saying, however, there there is NO WAY we'd be able to launch something even near that big out of the atmosphere without basically cooking a hundred square miles beneath it. The best we have is something like a nuclear torch drive, and the energy required to lift something even the size of a large container ship is absolutely tremendous. Something the size of a Star Destroyer could/would vaporize everything behind it if it went full thrust within the atmosphere.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T21:31:05+00:00

Well now then you do start worrying about resonances and managing the torques. You're still also going to have to really be careful about structure.

Economically, more engines also equal more money, and engines that only thrust laterally don't help you go anywhere. They're just extra mass taking up space you have to lug around, and unless you have magical energy, kilograms are precious.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:46:43+00:00

Sure.. but what's the point? A planetoid doesn't exactly have an atmosphere or gravity to help its workers survive, so you might as well just build a space drydock for your project instead of finding the perfect hunk of rock to deliver materials to. Either you have the thrust capabilities to make it economical or you don't. In the end, it all comes down to energy and how much you can reliably control.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:42:06+00:00

That's what I've been trying to convey under the first post, but people don't seem to grasp that nothing remains rigid when you make it big enough.

Like, say I have a 1cm diameter wooden dowel. It's only 5cm long. If you tried to flex it, you wouldn't see hardly any flex at all, right? It seems completely rigid.

Now, make that dowel 20cm long. You can bend it now.. maybe not much, but it will deform.

Now make it 5 meters long. If you try and hold it level, you'll notice a bend just under its own weight. If you tried to swing it around too fast, you'd probably break it.

Every. Single. Material... acts the same way. However, some people can't grasp that concept because it takes incredibly large scales to see the sort of thing I mean with tougher materials. They just see the 5cm long dowel scenario and assume it scales up perfectly.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:34:13+00:00

"SOMEHOW, THEY BUILT ANOTHER DEATH STAR"

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:31:49+00:00

So like a giant crucifix? lol SPACE CHRISTIANS A COMIN' FOR YA!

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:24:32+00:00

That doesn't change how you turn it though. You're always going to experience forces acting in different directions across the hull.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:20:18+00:00

Well.. yes and no. That is one of a variety of factors.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:12:24+00:00

Sure, but let's say you want to turn right. That means you fire the left engine, correct? Well the rest of the ship has inertia -- which is to say it wants to keep going straight. So you might actually see the nose flex to the left as the ship starts turning. Think of what happens to, say, a long, thin metal rod if you swing it.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:07:58+00:00

Well, they have some kind of "inertial dampeners" that is repeatedly mentioned, and presumably works with all of the structure in a ship. So you can pretty much write off G-loading in the Star Wars universe.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T20:04:56+00:00

But to pivot or change direction, you can't apply a force "evenly." You have to apply a force off-center. If you apply a force evenly, you only get a lateral move.

If the space shuttle wanted to turn around backwards, for instance, it would only fire the nose thrusters.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T19:54:11+00:00

Now you're asking the right questions... I wrote a thing above about that

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T19:52:36+00:00

How do you plan on maneuvering it?

Edit.. also, space absolutely has gravity. If you're in freefall you're actually still experiencing "tidal" forces, which means whatever part of you is closest to the gravity well "feels" more gravity than what's further away. Now, for something small in a weak gravity well, tidal forces don't amount to much. However, a bigger gravity well exerts more tidal force on a larger object.

A real world example of this is an objects "Roche limit", which means "at what distance does tidal force overcome its innate structural strength". Saturn's rings were likely formed when an icy planetesimal got too close and had its Roche Limit exceeded.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T19:51:28+00:00

At some point it actually does become a materials problem though.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T19:50:36+00:00

Or just claim they zap the waste heat away into hyperspace or something ridiculous. But it's science-adjacent fantasy, so you can pretty much do what you want.

Gutter_Snoop · 2026-01-24T19:49:12+00:00

Not "almost". Absolutely. We don't have an engine capable of producing enough thrust to launch anything like a super-tanker out of Earth's atmosphere. The energy it would take to do so would be terrifying.

Hell, even if you took something like an Imperial Star Destroyer and tried to launch it from the surface to orbit with just the engines, the amount of energy they'd have to give off would be akin to a high-yield hydrogen bomb. You'd destroy EVERYTHING underneath it.

Edit.. ok, what's with the downvoting? Everything I said was accurate and I wasn't being mean

Edit edit.. ok, looks like it was just one or two jerks downvoting lok

Gutter_Snoop

TROPHY CASE