Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Stellar Navigation Based On Network Analysis
Take a look at this wonderful article on trying to visualize how to travel between the stars. What would a travel network look like?
(2D visualization of a 12 light-year network)
With this spirit of exploration in mind I wondered to myself how, exactly, would one go about navigating the stars. Perhaps due to my being older and wiser (and/or losing my childhood imagination), my fantasies regarding exploring the universe now come attached to limitations and practicalities. Stellar travel is beyond our technical abilities; what with our inability to wield space-time, finite life-spans, and technical inabilities and all. But if we could manage even a relatively modest amount of stellar travel, what would that modest amount have to be to open the network of our stellar neighborhood to us? And what would that 3-dimensional network look like?So, I imagined our Sun surrounded by its immediate neighborhood and saw a network of pathways one could take given a limit on how far you could travel before having to "refuel" at the next star system--say, perhaps, via mining asteroids or by deploying your solar charger.
Of the many novels I've read, I was reminded of the network of travel stations in Clifford Simak's 1963 classic Way Station:
Ulysses said, "We are a traveling people. We need a travel station here. We want to turn this house into a station and you to keep the station..."But traveling..."
"From star to star," said Ulysses. "Quicker than the thought of it... It will be no more than a switching and a resting point..."
(Eight Light-year Internal Visualization)
One challenge in accurately visualizing this data is that it has 3 spatial dimensions. Every graph/network visualization I've done before either didn't have spatial dimensions or merely had 2D geo-spatial dimensions. This is a challenge because most graph tools are oriented towards a 2-dimensional layout and visualization. Gephi, a tool I commonly use, does 2-dimensional visualizations. It is aware of 3D coordinates of nodes and can do an okay job of representing it in 2-dimensions. But with no ability to pan, it's hard to get a real feel for what the 3D structure of the network looks like.After some hunting, I found NAViGaTOR which was created and is actively maintained by the Jurisica Lab of the Ontario Cancer Institute. Although it has the ability to do 3D layouts, none of its layouts support coordinate-based layouts from node data. However, after some experimentation, I discovered that if you disable the option which automatically applies a layout on network load, that the default behavior is actually to lay the network out based on node 3D coordinate data. I contacted a maintainer of NAViGaTOR and they confirmed that that is indeed the expected behavior.
I maintained the node coloring based on star temperature above. However, I made every node have equal size.
Fans of 'Doc' Smith's 1934 novel Triplanetary may be reminded of the 3D Tank Display:
Every space-ship within range of her powerful detectors was represented by two brilliant, slowly moving points of light; one upon a great micrometer screen, the other in the "tank"--the immense, three-dimensional, minutely cubed model of the entire Solar System.
Be sure to read the entire article Stellar Navigation Using Network Analysis.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/8/2014)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.' - Arthur William Bernal (1935)
Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...' Arthur C. Clarke, 1978.
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.' V.E. Thiessen, 1947.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
TRANSFORM Dynamic Furniture Concept Becomes What You Need
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
Dino From Magical Toys An AI Companion To Children
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship
'There was no wheel, and no steersman!'
What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots?
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
AI Computer Chip Designs Passeth Human Understanding
'It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings.'
Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.'
Fine-Tune Your Infinite Book The Way You Want It
'I squatted down beside the roller and tried to make some sense out of the knobs. There were thirty-nine of them...'
SpiRobs Soft Spiral Robotic Arm
'Beware the long, flexible, glittering tentacles...'
Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
'...I don’t understand technical things — tell me, does it ever feel anything?"
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
