Re: OpenGFX Mars
Posted: 27 Oct 2014 18:58
Aircraft
Air travel on Mars is surprisingly difficult. The air is extremely thin, which makes lifting any significant weight extremely difficult, wihle the tiny oxygen content of the air means aircraft have to carry the extra weight of an oxidiser in addition to fuel. This makes conventional aeroplanes extremely difficult to build, and instead balloons dominate. The most common aircraft on Mars are huge airships, which use a combination of balloon bouancy and an aerofoil body shape for lift. These ships need some forward motion so stay in the air, and the thin air allows them to go surprisingly fast, although nowhere near as fast as winged aircraft. They only need a short runway to get into the air.
Rocket powered planes are also common, and are extremely fast, but severely limited by cargo capacity and very high running costs due to the self-damaging nature of rocket engines. They also require long runways to get airborne. In later years, super lightweight materials make some solar powered (eliminating the need of carrying fuel and oxidiser) winged aircraft possible, and these provide a good balance between capacity and speed, although with neither the capacity of airships or the speed of rocket planes, and requiring a long runway to get into the air.
Vertical takeoff vehicles are also initially dominated by balloons, in this case controlling their vertical movement by large vertically mounted fans or turbines. The low air density means little drag, allowing much faster lateral movement than balloons on Earth. The balloon bouancy also provides a much better cargo capacity than their Earth counterpart, the helicopter, although not so good as the airships. In later years as lightweight materials improve these balloons transition towards quadcopters, as the balloon is gradually responsible for less and less of the lift relative to the fans/turbines. These quadcopters have little benefit for cargo capacity, but much improved speed.
Airports are much like on Earth, but with the added logistical difficulty of a lethal atmosphere! However unlike Earth, short runways are common as they are sufficient for high capacity airships. Long runways tend to be found on larger high flight capacity airports which offsets the low cargo capacity of high speed rocket planes and conventional aircraft, at the cost of requiring much more land.
I have drawn all the graphics for the aircraft and airports, but still don't have access to the repo! So, as before, here are some big zips of lots of graphics.
Air travel on Mars is surprisingly difficult. The air is extremely thin, which makes lifting any significant weight extremely difficult, wihle the tiny oxygen content of the air means aircraft have to carry the extra weight of an oxidiser in addition to fuel. This makes conventional aeroplanes extremely difficult to build, and instead balloons dominate. The most common aircraft on Mars are huge airships, which use a combination of balloon bouancy and an aerofoil body shape for lift. These ships need some forward motion so stay in the air, and the thin air allows them to go surprisingly fast, although nowhere near as fast as winged aircraft. They only need a short runway to get into the air.
Rocket powered planes are also common, and are extremely fast, but severely limited by cargo capacity and very high running costs due to the self-damaging nature of rocket engines. They also require long runways to get airborne. In later years, super lightweight materials make some solar powered (eliminating the need of carrying fuel and oxidiser) winged aircraft possible, and these provide a good balance between capacity and speed, although with neither the capacity of airships or the speed of rocket planes, and requiring a long runway to get into the air.
Vertical takeoff vehicles are also initially dominated by balloons, in this case controlling their vertical movement by large vertically mounted fans or turbines. The low air density means little drag, allowing much faster lateral movement than balloons on Earth. The balloon bouancy also provides a much better cargo capacity than their Earth counterpart, the helicopter, although not so good as the airships. In later years as lightweight materials improve these balloons transition towards quadcopters, as the balloon is gradually responsible for less and less of the lift relative to the fans/turbines. These quadcopters have little benefit for cargo capacity, but much improved speed.
Airports are much like on Earth, but with the added logistical difficulty of a lethal atmosphere! However unlike Earth, short runways are common as they are sufficient for high capacity airships. Long runways tend to be found on larger high flight capacity airports which offsets the low cargo capacity of high speed rocket planes and conventional aircraft, at the cost of requiring much more land.
I have drawn all the graphics for the aircraft and airports, but still don't have access to the repo! So, as before, here are some big zips of lots of graphics.
I'm stuck working between a computer with Internet access, and a computer that can build the grfs. I don't always get a chance to check it builds before pushing... :s
