（外文电子版资料）Niven, Larry - Bigger Than World.doc

Bigger Than Worlds By Larry Niven Just because youve spent all your life on one planet, doesnt mean that everyone always will. Already there are alternatives to worlds. The Apollo spacecraft have an excellent record; they have never killed anyone in space. The Soviet space station may have killed its inhabitants, but the American Skylab didnt. Alas, they all lack a certain something. Gravity. Permanence. We want something to live on, or in, something superior to what weve got: safer, or more mobile, or roomier. Otherwise, why move? Its odd how much there is to be said about structures larger than worlds, considering that we cannot yet begin to build any one of them. On- the basis of size, the Dyson sphere-a spherical shell around a sun-comes about in the middle. But lets start small and work our way up. The Multi-Generation Ship Robert Heinleins early story Universe has been imitated countless times by most of the writers in the business. The idea was this: Present-day physics poses a limit on the speed of an interstellar vehicle. The ships we send to distant stats will be on one-way journeys, at least at first. They will have to carry a complete ecology they couldnt carry enough food and oxygen in tanks. Because they will take generations to complete their journeys, they must also carry a viable and complete society. Clearly were talking about quite a large ship, with a population in the hundreds at least: high enough to prevent genetic drift. Centrifugal force substitutes for gravity. Were going to be doing a lot of that. We spin the ship on its axis, and put all the things that need full gravity at the outside, along the hull. Plant rooms, exercise rooms, et cetera. Things that dont need gravity, like fuel and guidance instruments, we line along the axis. If our motors thrust through the same axis, we will have to build a lot of the machinery on tracks, because the aft wall will be the floor when the ship is under power The Universe ship is basic to a disc