"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht
news:web.4350e3b54ff5b998731f01d10@news.povray.org...
> Anyway, don't think all these allusions have gone unnoticed. Rama might be
> the earliest version of this idea - I personally haven't read anything
> earlier. Greg Bear's Thistledown provided some of the best descriptions
> I've ever read of cylindrical habitats like these, although IIRC that
> cavern-space was extremely large. Iain Banks makes reference to similar
> stuff, but only as background ammo, most of his action tends to take place
> in deep space, or on planets or orbitals.
>
> My habitat is about 20km long and 10km in diameter. There is a light
source
> at the centre, which will eventually be a 10km plasma tube along the axis.
> It's bloody difficult making landscapes that look good and detailed from
> above, so I don't know how far this will go, but I'm going to put some
> buildings etc in to help with the sense of scale.
>
> Anyway, here's a better version, a bit bigger, and a bit hazier.
>

I like it!! This starts to be more believable (?), although, from the
landscape features, I would guess that the diameter is much more than 10 km!
More like 100.

AFAIK, Rama is *the* earliest worked-out concept. Like Ringworld being it
for its own. An interesting side track from Ringworld is Gaea (in Titan, by
John Varley). It is a self-sustaining world, but more asteroid to planet
sized.

Thomas

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