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[orange]

There was an early chron that said planetary interaction was difficult. It's pretty much been forgotten about. RP it as breakthroughs in tech allowing easier trade between the ground and space.

Stairway to Heaven

Lets talk about the current realities of getting to orbit - ie Rocket Science.

The basics are, in order to lift X tonnage to LEO, you have to have the fuel to get you there.  For a single stage to orbit, almost 90% of your mass is fuel.  For two-stages to orbit, 85% of your mass is fuel.  (This is really about desired orbital velocity, which is directly related to the orbit you want.) Link

More efficient engines (say nuclear rockets) reduce your fuel requirement and allow for heavier payloads.

But in a world where you have the kinds of energy seen all the time in Eve (warp & jump technology), rockets are horribly inefficient for regular, long term ground-to-space transport.  Space Elevators, which are being worked on and require advanced material science to achieve, are slow to move things up and down, but they are very efficient and only require energy.  Perhaps for PI's purposes there is a ton of energy used to speed up the process.

Lastly, the other piece of tech I will point to is mass drivers; think really, really big rail guns.  This goes back to having a lot of energy, the appropriate containers and packaging.  This will go really really fast.

For people, a SSTO that takes off and lands/docks "conventionally" is great for passengers and small freight.  Give this SSTO a small capacitor and warp drive and it can make the short hop to the nearby station rather quickly.  If you start to want to ship thousands of tonnage to orbit, the rocket (Earth equivalent is the Airplane) is probably not the cheapest/most efficient way to do it and you may want to look at something that takes a bit longer (a ship for today), like a Space Elevator.

[Vieve]

When you're a capsuleer who can zip back and forth between stations in seconds and across constellations and regions in minutes and you have access to all the best perks and services, why take the time to enter deep gravity wells?

Why?  Because the capsuleer in question hasn't let go of his or her identity as a planet dweller?  Because he or she has something to prove to folks back home (and it's just not the same doing it via holo broadcasts)?  Because he or she likes the occasional reminder that life's better in space?  Because planet dwellers are so naive it's amusing (or refreshing)?  Because all the cool kids hang in Jita IV-IV, and their sheer collective awesomeness gives him/her a headache?  Because he/she lost relatives in Malkalen?

Everything you could want is available to you in space.

I agree, but I'll add an 'almost' to that everything.¹

---
¹I was born on a planet, she told him. And I grew up on one. While home can be a station, or even in a ship's quarters, it is not the same. I want sky over my head instead of beneath my feet.   And damn it, you made me quote myself.

[Ulphus]

When you're a capsuleer who can zip back and forth between stations in seconds and across constellations and regions in minutes and you have access to all the best perks and services, why take the time to enter deep gravity wells?  Everything you could want is available to you in space.

Except my character's family. Most of the clan is still on the planet's surface. I don't visit as often as I should because, as some people have pointed out, I can go ten jumps faster than I can get to the planetary surface. But I do visit, sometimes for extended periods.

edit: Beaten by Vieve

[Ken]

orange, Great post.  Are there any space elevators in New Eden?  There may well be, I just don't remember coming upon any in PF and they certainly aren't showing up in-game.  Also, tbh we're probably wasting our time thinking about this with any shred of scientific accuracy.  EVE is "submarines in space", after all.

Vieve & Ulphus, I certainly agree with your replies.  There are definitely good reasons to made the descent.  I was just playing devil's advocate a bit.  However, I imagine the longer a pod pilot lives "out there" all free and ungrounded (hur hur), the less likely they are to find those reasons compelling enough to land.  As Ulphus admits, visitations aren't as often as they should be...

It may take decades, but in the long run those cloning contracts mean that while the members of their planet-bound family/friends/tribe keep getting older, the capsuleers won't.  Even those who cling the most desperately to their humbler origins and planet-based identities will eventually outlive everything that makes that home what it was.  Conversely, capsuleers are likely to seem more and more alien to conventional, gravity well-dwelling, non-augmented humans and thus less welcome.  Most pod pilots, I think, are quite willing to be denizens (almost) exclusively of the space-based portion of civilization, given the tremendous resources and prestige that space brings them (see: the majority of [non-RPing] EVE characters).

[Ulphus]

Vieve & Ulphus, I certainly agree with your replies.  There are definitely good reasons to made the descent.  I was just playing devil's advocate a bit.  However, I imagine the longer a pod pilot lives "out there" all free and ungrounded (hur hur), the less likely they are to find those reasons compelling enough to land.  As Ulphus admits, visitations aren't as often as they should be...

Hell, in RL, I don't visit my parents as often as I should... I don't think that makes my character less attentive than many non-pod-pilots.

It may take decades, but in the long run those cloning contracts mean that while the members of their planet-bound family/friends/tribe keep getting older, the capsuleers won't.  Even those who cling the most desperately to their humbler origins and planet-based identities will eventually outlive everything that makes that home what it was. 

Every time someone says that I think about CDs and how they were going to let us keep digital information indefinitely.

Pod-pilots have been around for what, 7 years? Any IC ideas about what the effects will be are only conjecture at this point. Ask again after they've been around for 30 or 50 years.

But that said, I see your point about pod-pilots being rich and disassociated from the run-of-the-mill people.

[orange]

orange, Great post.  Are there any space elevators in New Eden?  There may well be, I just don't remember coming upon any in PF and they certainly aren't showing up in-game.  Also, tbh we're probably wasting our time thinking about this with any shred of scientific accuracy.  EVE is "submarines in space", after all.

It is part of building a PI spaceport and in the case of Eve, I think it is a "non-material" elevator utilizing tractor-beam technology.  It could easily be dual-purposed.  Now how you get to tractor-beam tech is something else entirely and is where the "handwaivy" bit comes in.  Stairway to Heaven mentions them as well.

But, I would not want to be in an object being tractor beamed anywhere.  Much prefer the smooth take-off flowed by a transition to orbital speed and then warp.  (Eve also apparently has inertial dampeners.)

[Ken]

Every time someone says that I think about CDs and how they were going to let us keep digital information indefinitely.

Pod-pilots have been around for what, 7 years? Any IC ideas about what the effects will be are only conjecture at this point. Ask again after they've been around for 30 or 50 years.

I don't think I fully get the CD analogy.  Could be I just need sleep.

Cloning tech has been part of the setting for a long while.  It predates the time represented in the game by many decades, if not longer, and ought to have elicited some cultural effects already.  The last seven years is just the time since the pod was enhanced with the brain scanner, creating the modern "immortal" capsuleer.  In any event, IC or OOC conjecture is all the same with regards to this topic, but there's a lot of sci-fi literature out there on it.  I often think of Altered Carbon as a "reference" for potential implications.

"non-material" elevator utilizing tractor-beam technology

Eve also apparently has inertial dampeners

EVE is such a rich setting in terms of the social conflicts that I hate to admit that a plain jane science fantasy heart beats beneath that gritty exterior.  I suppose as long as we keep the technobabble consistent, who can argue, right? 

[orange]

It is the exploration of the social conflicts that matters, in all Science Fiction.  The technology needs to be  believable across the setting, our technobabble can even be off, if it is believable.

IMO, good scifi explores issues & stories difficult to approach in historical or modern settings.

[Mithfindel]

Space elevators: In a certain novel by TonyG, there were space elevators at the Armor Forge. (Which, thus, must have been located at or near the equator or then the counterweight in space must've had nice maneuvering capabilities.)

On Customs Offices: If you've observed them, you'll notice that the payloads are shot at and from the planet. The Customs Office uses some kind of a tractor beams to arrest payload capsules coming near and pull them into one of the holes in the structure. From the other hole it shoots stuff back down, which seems to impact with a flash. I assume that flash is a similar arrestor/tractor system located at the launch pad. As such, this mechanism is much like a space elevator, except without the cables. This does remind me of a space fountain concept. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain)

[orange]

Space elevators: In a certain novel by TonyG, there were space elevators at the Armor Forge. (Which, thus, must have been located at or near the equator or then the counterweight in space must've had nice maneuvering capabilities.)

Which it could considering the amount of energy routinely available in Eve.

[Saxon Hawke]

To the OP: I've always roleplayed that Saxon spends more time "planetside" than in his ship. He is a pod pilot because it is the most efficient way to bring about the changes he wants to see. Although I, as a player, would have a hard time putting the character aside should an independent Intaki be created, as far as Saxon is concerned, that is retirement day.

As for the practicality of it, I think others have already hit on the more salient points. First, Sansha dropships show that you can go down and up pretty quickly if you don't give a damn about where you land or the sovereignty of the air space your traveling through.

The technology question is relative. If we can do warp speed and cyno-jump and all the other cool things we do, taking off and landing from a planet shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Even in today's time, there are companies working to figure this one out.

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/

[Casiella]

To the OP: I've always roleplayed that Saxon spends more time "planetside" than in his ship. He is a pod pilot because it is the most efficient way to bring about the changes he wants to see. Although I, as a player, would have a hard time putting the character aside should an independent Intaki be created, as far as Saxon is concerned, that is retirement day.

Or perhaps, in that case, he'd work to support the fledgling state, either by protecting it from the numerous enemies it would have or by serving it in some other leadership capacity...

[Seriphyn]

Gallentean stations seem to be the closest to cities in space. The factory type station has a giant biodome, though the texture suggests a rural community.

The other Gallente station, with three biodomes (the one in the Backstage banner) has a city-like texture. In fact, it looks like its taken directly from google earth...so I can imagine a planetside style city in those domes.

However, those types of stations are rare unfortunately

[Casiella]

Eh. I suspect others just have stuff more enclosed... look at how many kilometers those stations encompass and you'll see they have no shortage of volume.

[Ulphus]

Every time someone says that I think about CDs and how they were going to let us keep digital information indefinitely.

Pod-pilots have been around for what, 7 years? Any IC ideas about what the effects will be are only conjecture at this point. Ask again after they've been around for 30 or 50 years.

I don't think I fully get the CD analogy.  Could be I just need sleep.

When they were first made popular, people thought CDs were an incoruptable way to store data on pristine format for centuries or millenia. After they'd been around 10 years, people discovered that CDs do degrade, and you can't be sure that they'll still be readable in 10 years, let alone 100, or 1000 years like they initially thought. The analogy is that Pod-pilots, and the insta-scan transfer thing, haven't been around long enough for us to be sure what the long term effects are; that talk of pod pilots being immortal might be a bit premature.

Maybe once you've been podded enough times your personality turns into a bland mush. Maybe you start forgetting things, like how to tie your shoelaces (that would explain the popularity of velcro fasteners). Who knows?