The Stellar Wind Orbital Research Station

All,

I have been wanting to post this to the forums for (quite literally) years now. This base was finished about 6 months after i13. But a new job and my family needs and all that RL stuff always took away my time for actually posting about it. I'm on a “staycation” this week, and so blocked out a chunk of time to get the images made and this post finally ready for prime time.

So this is my private base. Initially I used it for secure IO storage only. However, the prestige grant (I padded the roster for maximum profit) and reduction in cost of larger plot sizes allowed me to expand it into the “space station” that I had always envisioned it to be. I was also able to add telepads and all the other bells-and-whistles that a fully-functional base for a medium-size SG would have.

The basic premise is that this base is a rotating space station in orbit about the Earth which is used for scientific (mostly astronomical) research. My overarching design philosophy was that the items within the base had to be functional and real (i.e. they had to be the sorts of things that one would find on an “actual” space station, built using early-21st-century technology, which rotates to provide artificial gravity). Therefore I had to forgo a lot of cool ideas because they wouldn’t fit this theme (although a few comic book SciFi elements did creep in). Additionally, I had to work within the framework of a bunch of identically sized rooms arranged symmetrically (because if they were not, the space station couldn’t rotate uniformly). This did provide an additional challenge. A larger plot would have helped with this, but even with the price reduction the plot size I needed for a full-blown ring of rooms was out of reach. So I went with an inner “ring” of eight pods (actually a square of eight 2x2 rooms) with an outer “ring” of pods (3x3 rooms) attached to it. This gives a somewhat circular shape the way I have them arranged.

The inner “ring” (actually a square) of eight 2x2 rooms was the initial small base, started so long ago I don't remember even vaguely when it was. The eight 3x3 rooms and the four 1x1 “connecting” rooms were added after i13.

The telescopes and scientific instruments look as close to the real thing as I could create using the bits and pieces available. Again, the basic design philosophy was to mostly create “real” items, rather than sci-fi or comic book props. Mostly.

I also needed to create work and living space for the SG members and the technicians and scientists that might visit the station.

I wanted windows looking out into space, of course, but since there are no wall or ceiling decorations which resemble this, I went with sewer bricks set to black-black on the color chart. This sort of simulates glass walls looking out into the blackness of space. One needs to imagine that the stars are actually visible through the ceilings and upper walls, but they just can’t be seen in these photos because they’re underexposed (like the stars in the moon landing pictures). In some rooms I placed “support structures” along the corners to simulate a real-world framework that would hold large transparent windows in place.

I also puzzled for some time over the problem of emergency air locks and bulkheads. I wanted to build them between the pods for the sake of realism. However, I like an open design that is faster to move through. My eventual compromise was to create “high-speed emergency bulkheads” that could very quickly slam closed to seal off sections of the base in case of pressure loss. Look for these at the tops of the ramps (on the floors) and along the ceilings in several places.

The large pods that contain the optical telescopes have walls of air-tight transparent aluminum separating the telescope area from the “observing room.” Access to the telescope floor is via air lock (each pod has one). The idea is that when in operation, the air in the telescope pod is evacuated, the exterior walls and ceilings are retracted, and the telescopes sit exposed to the vacuum of space on a platform.

And, of course, I had to figure out a way to get the SG symbols to (nearly) disappear. I did my best. (Damn “bug” fixes that nobody wanted... grumblegrumblegrumble.)

One other note: The base has a “Storage Museum” that holds numerous level 53 TO enhancements, one of each kind that used to be available in game before they stopped dropping forever. It also holds at least one of every type of base salvage that ever existed in the game, stored in a single bin before the Great Storage Nerf made it impossible to cram in 2,500 pieces of salvage. This includes several items of base salvage that were intended to be villain-side only, but some bits of which floated over to blue-side due to a bug. (They cost a lot at WW's.) The bin also holds hundreds of crafted base components, Halloween salvage, candy canes, etc. The two “museum” storage bins are walled off completely for added security.



The following post will be your Official Briefing on the base and its components.

---- Briefing Begins ----

This document is a brief introduction to the Stellar Wind Orbital Research Platform.

ICSR Document Number: 384c-25(3)(b)
Document classification is: UNCLASSIFIED
Date of last revision: 5 July 2010


In October of 2006 the meta-human code-named “Zubenelgenubi” spoke at the annual meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Geneva. Prior to the awakening of his mutant psycho-kinetic powers during the first Rikti invasion, Zubenelgenubi was a post-doctoral research scientist studying astrometry at the University of Arizona. At the meeting of the IAU he proposed the creation of an “orbital research platform” that would consolidate and provide a central focus for astronomical research outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Because of the devastation of the Rikti War and the obvious continuing threat, basic scientific research projects have struggled to find funding, personnel, and focus for several years. Zubenelgenubi made a compelling case for the importance of reversing this trend.

Zubenelgenubi is the de facto leader of Stellar Wind, a small, loosely organized paranormal “Hero Group” with a publicity office in Paragon City. At the time of the IAU meeting, Stellar Wind was in possession of a geostationary space station. This station was captured by the group after a long series of battles with the self-styled “Dr. Preposterous” (see attached documents for details on this individual and the unclassified portions of his Interpol file). Used for storage and personal recreation by Stellar Wind for several months, Zubenelgenubi offered the station up to the world scientific community. Over the next two years it was re-tooled, re-furbished, and adapted as an orbital research platform for the conventional study of space and astronomy.

A cooperative partnership was quickly formed which included the IAU, the National Science Foundation, the European Space Agency, and the United Nations. Funding and human resources from these sources as well as a few major universities were funneled into a new umbrella organization, the International Consortium for Scientific Research (ICSR). ICSR Headquarters is located in Boston.

Two things should be noted:
(1) The super group Stellar Wind still makes use of the space station as their headquarters, storage facility, temporary living quarters, and emergency transportation hub. All scientific research conducted in the facility is secondary to the group’s working schedule and primary goal of safeguarding the Earth from danger.
(2) The Orbital Research Platform is for conventional scientific research only. All investigations into parallel dimensions, time travel, magic, and other unconventional lines of inquiry are not the primary focus of the ICSR.

The Research Platform is composed of two concentric rings of self-contained “pods.” The inner ring consists of 8 pods, each 15 meters across. The outer ring attaches to the inner. It is composed of 8 larger pods each 20 meters across. Each pod can be independently sealed using high-speed emergency pressure doors in the event of hull breach or other sudden loss of pressure.

The entire station rotates to provide “artificial gravity” through centripetal force. In the inner ring this amounts to an acceleration of 0.25g, while in the outer it is 0.31g. If required for maintenance or scientific reasons, this rotation can be halted. A massive flywheel is then used to store the angular momentum. Use of this system allows the rotation rate of the station to be adjusted without consuming reaction mass.

As previously stated, the station maintains geostationary position above Paragon City in a Clarke Orbit at an altitude of approximately 36,000 km. Access to the base by ICSR personnel is via modified SCRAM engine small-passenger near-earth shuttles. These shuttles depart from space station Gagarin in low-Earth orbit and boost at 1-g for the entire trip, with turn-around and deceleration beginning at 18,000 km. Travel time from Gagarin to the Stellar Wind facility (including undocking, rendezvous, and docking) takes approximately 85 minutes.

In the event of an emergency, ICSR personnel can evacuate via emergency escape shuttle or by using the experimental long-range transporters [ second view ] maintained and operated by Stellar Wind. (These transporters consume excessive amounts of power and are therefore reserved for use by members of the super group in normal circumstances. Reluctance by many ICSR personnel to use this new technology is the other reason shuttles are the preferred method of transporting human technicians and research scientists to and from the station.) Minor maintenance facilities for the shuttles are available on the station as well. [ interior view of control room ]

Temporary living quarters are available on the station for ICSR scientists and technicians. (Stellar Wind members have first priority for use of the rooms, should they desire. However, only two members, Zubenelgenubi and Moon-Rabbit, use the station extensively as a residence.) Engineering technicians maintain a week-on, week-off work schedule, living on the station during their shift. Visiting researchers stay for varying periods of time. A kitchen and dining area are included in Pod IX, as well as recreational and common areas.

Stellar Wind maintains a small museum and library on the station. It includes rare books, captured artifacts, and other items.

Power for the station's main systems and scientific instruments is primarily supplied via large solar collectors. Additional power (mostly for operation of the transporters) is provided by an experimental “warm-fusion reactor”, created and operated by Dr. Svetlana Noir of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This reactor is one of two major research projects being conducted on the station that do not fall under ICSR jurisdiction. (However, Dr. Noir and her team are very cooperative with ICSR and sensitive to the requirements of its projects.) The Warm Fusion reactor operates at temperatures of only 10,000K. Tanks of Deuterium and Tritium are visible in this photo. Details of the design and operation of this reactor are classified.

The other non-ICSR research project on the station is the experimental low-gravity hydroponics lab [ second view ]. This lab helps greatly with the removal of carbon dioxide from the station’s air and the replenishment of its oxygen. However, at the present time the station’s atmosphere is not a closed system. Additional mechanical systems are needed to maintain air quality.

ICSR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS:

The 12-meter radio telescope. This radio telescope is part of the Ultra-Long Baseline Array (ULBA). It operates in conjunction with five other identical radio telescopes to provide extremely high resolution images of radio sources. Two of the other ULBA radio telescopes are located on Earth, and two are at Earth orbital resonance points L4 and L5. The sixth element in the array is operated robotically from the surface of the Moon. The instrument seen here sits on an elevator platform. When in operation it is raised through an airlock door and exposed to the vacuum of space.

The Aristarchus Space Telescope is a single 5-meter reflector. It can be configured for use as either a Cassegrain or for prime-focus applications. [ second view ] In these photos can be seen the tanks of liquid helium that are used to cool the CCD chips in the instruments. The mirror is an ultra-thin meniscus made of an experimental metallic alloy. This telescope has the largest single mirror of any telescope on the station, but at the same time the mount has the least mass. The equatorial mount and large setting circles seen in these photos are a deliberate throw-back to the days of more primitive telescope design.[ view of control room (above) and air lock (below) ]

The telescope with the greatest amount of light-gathering ability on the station is the MOOT (Multi-mirror Orbital Optical Telescope). It consists of seven 2-meter mirrors arranged in a single mount. Light from all seven mirrors is combined into a single focus. This instrument was very economical to build, as the mirror blanks used were obtained as surplus from a U.S. Air Force spy satellite project dating back to the 1980’s. These mirrors are on loan from the University of Arizona.


The twin PYM telescopes can be seen here (they share Pod XIII with the MOOT). The PYM's are primarily funded and operated by a consortium of three universities; Paragon, Yale, and MIT. In exchange for use of the orbital research platform and its facilities, ICSR receives approximately 30% of the time on these telescopes. Each instrument is a 1-meter Schmidt camera outfitted with a cutting-edge, next-generation experimental CCD detector that allows for 99.3% photon sensitivity without the need for cooling the chips.

[ air lock and control room for this pod. The ladder leads up to a small storage area that technicians have turned into a small hidden lounge and quiet work area.]

The Space Probe Assembly and Launch Facility fills Pod III. In these photos one can see final systems integration in progress for an ELBAS (Extremely Long Baseline Astrometry Scopes) probe. ELBAS is a system of four ultra-deep-space probes designed to allow direct measurement, via parallax, of the distance to the 100 million stars nearest to the Sun. Each probe will eventually be given a gravitational boost from a fly-by of Jupiter and achieve solar system escape velocity. They will each head off into interstellar space in different directions. As time passes, the accuracy of their parallax measurements will increase due to the increasing distance between the probes. Here a large photovoltaic panel is being checked out and attached to the third member of the ELBAS system. When complete, the probe will be attached to an ion booster rocket and launched into space. Gradually, the modest accelerations provided by the ion booster and flybys of planets in the inner solar system will provide enough kinetic energy for a Jupiter-crossing orbit to be achieved.[ view of the control room ]

GoSH (the Geosynchronous Space Heliostat) [ second view ] is a system of three solar telescopes on a single mount. Like the ULBA radio telescope, an elevator system allows it to be deployed outside the station. The largest instrument here is a 1-meter Vector Spectroscopic Heliograph. Attached to it is a dedicated 0.5-meter hydrogen-alpha telescope and a 0.5 meter instrument with filters for various wavelengths.

Pod XIV houses the MSST (Medium Synoptic Survey Telescope) (and the Tsiolkovsky Refractor). The MSST saw first-light on October 1st of 2008. It is designed to survey and image the entire the night sky every seven days. Its extremely short focal length of f2.5 gives it a field of view of nearly five square degrees. The amount of data collected by this telescope in a 24-hour period is nearly 15 terabytes. This data is stored on the station and transmitted to Earth twice each day with a 50% redundant overlap to reduce data degradation. To the left of this photo, the station's mirror aluminizing chamber is visible.

The Tsiolkovsky Refractor is pictured here (along with another view of the MSST to the right). It contains a 30-inch primary lens created by Alvan Clark in the late 1880’s. This lens was once part of the large refracting telescope at Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg. The Pulkovo Observatory was destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad during WWII, but most of the instruments, including the lens used here, were saved. It is on extended loan to ICSR by the Russian Government.

[Pod XIV has a 3-level control room and storage area. Entry area - from Pod IV. First level - computer servers and station-wide IT integration. Second level – telescope operations. Third level - storage and another private work area. Air lock - view looking out from the observing platform.]

This is the recently installed Hoagland All-Sky Camera. It is primarily used as a teaching tool for graduate and undergraduate students in astronomy and astrophysics. It contains a relatively modest 24-inch mirror. The telescope is accessible via a dedicated high-speed internet up-link from 27 universities across North America, Europe, and Japan.

The Hawking Gravity Wave Detector [ second view ] in Pod XII is named after the late theoretical physicist (tragically killed in a Nemesis Plot). It is the most cutting-edge scientific instrument currently on the station. The Hawking consists of three pairs of massive parallel cylinders, each pair arranged at right angles to the other two pairs. Each cylinder is composed of an ultra-pure unobtanium core surrounded by a jacket of depleted uranium. In theory, gravity waves created by extremely violent events (like the collision of a pair of rapidly revolving binary neutron stars) will propagate through space at the speed of light. When the wave encounters one of the cylinders, its distortion of space-time will cause the distance between it and its parallel twin cylinder to change by a very tiny but measurable amount. By comparing the distortions between the cylinder pairs at right angles to each other, it may be possible to detect not only the gravity waves themselves but also the direction from which they originated. It should then be possible to quickly slew one of the station’s optical telescopes to that location in the sky in an attempt to detect a visual counterpart to the event. In order to correct for vibrations and distortions caused by machinery and personnel on the research platform itself, massive amounts of parallel computing power is needed. As of this time, the system is not yet completely operational.

Pod XVI contains the Holographic Engine for the Actualization and Visualization of Near Space (HEAVNS) chamber. This virtual reality chamber will use data from the ELBAS space probe network (not yet complete) to construct three-dimensional models of the stars in various parts of the local spiral arm of our galaxy. The projection system is visible in the center of the pod in this photo. (When in full operation, the projector is invisible.) This particular device is a pet project of Zubenelgenubi and Moon-Rabbit, who as of yet have not revealed any details of its components or design. Since the ELBAS data set is not yet complete, HEAVNS currently uses the less accurate Tycho-3 Catalog for calibration and testing.[You cannot tell in this image, but the walkway floats above the floor of the room.]


Finally, here is a photo of an unusual artifact that is kept on the station for security reasons. Little is known about this object as the members of Stellar Wind refuse to discuss it. However, one station technician has quoted an overheard discussion between Moon-Rabbit and another Stellar Wind member in which she referred to it as “A little something from home.”

---- Briefing Ends ----



Additional areas include:

Inspiration Storage (triple-stacked back in the days when we were piling up magic desks. This took HOURS back in the day!).

Enhancement Storage and crafting area.

Secure area for the storage of rare and unusual items. [The enhancement rack contains one of each type of level 53 TO that used to be available in the game. The salvage rack contains examples of every type of base salvage, crafted components, special event salvage, and every other type that was ever available in-game.]

…and no tech base would be complete without one of THESE!

THANK YOU for reading!

DUUUUUDE!

Seriously, except for the odd decision to use brick walls in a star base, this totally rocks! And it's given me some inspiration for my space-SHIP project, so your timing in posting this couldn't be better!

I love the living quarters, Ion gun and Robot... pretty much all the things that looked like they had to take a lot of forethought and time to actually do. You put a LOT of effort into this, and it shows!

What server is this on? I'd love to take a tour, if such a thing is available!

Your acronyms are crackin' me up, Zube... and I love the Odyssey reference.

Excellent work indeed. Very well done. I heartily recommend the change to the black banners for your starfield views though. The bricks may serve the purpose, but the black banners would take your satellite to another whole level of greatness!

Excellent and Unique base Zub!

Very very cool! Inspirational in fact!

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Wow, Awesome Job Zube! So much detail not only in the base itself, but the story of your base. I'm humbled to see such a design feat.

BRB getting an icepack for the bruise on my jaw when it hit the floor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

Beautiful work! I love the hydroponics lab (I've got a soft spot for any green leafy thing ) but the whole thing really works wonderfully. Kudos to you!

Of course the base is awesome, everyone has told you that already...but let me just say... the robot is SUPER UBER AWESOMNESS!!!!! Ok out of my system... carry on people...

Your base is just - trying to find the correct word - I suppose fantabulous! Incredible amount of detail.

Bravo good sir, bravo!

Sion

Something I wanted to mention...

Typically base builders use pairs of bookshelves facing each other to create interrior walls and small room partitions. I found that all these bookshelves really added to lag in the base, however. Especially when you're pushing the upper-limit on objects in the base.

So for the interrior walls (like in the walls partitioning off all the living quarters) I used stacked white wall cabinets. I put them in place by first putting a cubicle in the proper spot, hanging the wall cabinets on the side of the cubicle, then removing the cubicle. You need a lot of the cabinets to make a full wall but it goes fairly fast once you have the floor set.

The doors for the "dorm rooms" are the short brown wall cabinets. I did make ONE door at an angle using the angled surfaces of a wall light (technique talked about by others elsewhere). It looks like an actual partly-opened door. But this was such a pain-in-the-a$$ that I only did it once.

Only two of the dorm rooms have finished interriors. The others are inaccessible so I didn't bother.

Just came across your thread. Color me amazed. Very, very creative.