I've been thinking about creating a space opera setting, and so I've been thinking about starships again (a recurring hobby for many years now). While I'm not really concerned about realism, I do wonder how big a ship could reasonably be before its crew couldn't really operate or even service it properly. Also, at what point is a flock of smaller ships better than a single huge ship? In other words, what is the maximum practical size of a ship?
I just read on Wikipedia that Vader's super star destroyer is (fictionally, of course) 19km long. The death star was 100 km in diameter.
That seems too big to be optimal to me.
In the real world, super tankers have gotten up over half a million tons. The largest warships run a hundred thousand tons (or a bit over).
We have the technology to build a million-ton ship, but no one has done so. In the real world, there's a bunch of reasons for that (politics making funding such a monster impossible, all-the-eggs-in-one-basket syndrome, and the problem of creating a shipyard that will never be used to that extent again).
So, for starships, what is the practical upper limit? How does it vary as tech levels increase?
I know it's essentially an impossible question, because there are a zillion factors that none of us can accurately anticipate. Still, I appreciate anyone's effort to think through the issue. Thanks much.
I just read on Wikipedia that Vader's super star destroyer is (fictionally, of course) 19km long. The death star was 100 km in diameter.
That seems too big to be optimal to me.
In the real world, super tankers have gotten up over half a million tons. The largest warships run a hundred thousand tons (or a bit over).
We have the technology to build a million-ton ship, but no one has done so. In the real world, there's a bunch of reasons for that (politics making funding such a monster impossible, all-the-eggs-in-one-basket syndrome, and the problem of creating a shipyard that will never be used to that extent again).
So, for starships, what is the practical upper limit? How does it vary as tech levels increase?
I know it's essentially an impossible question, because there are a zillion factors that none of us can accurately anticipate. Still, I appreciate anyone's effort to think through the issue. Thanks much.
Practical Upper Limit of Starship Size?
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