Yup, about 1.8M cubic metres volume. The Hero System vehicle and base rules suggest about 320 cubic metres per person is good enough for luxurious living, so that is enough for about five and a half thousand people. Should do for the equivalent of a cruise liner and hospital ship, with an immense hanger-dock.
Actually, the current design for the outer shell is six layers, each of which is a triple layer of three ultra-materials, with structural separators, but mostly waved aerogel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
Each of the triple layers is actually made from waved 5um mylar (BoPET, polyester sheet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET
The internal structures are basically similar, with carefully rolled edges because otherwise people will lose bits of their anatomy when touching them.
There is a further layer on the outermost shell of the meta-materials that provide the passive invisibility - that is probably the most tricky part of the build, and one of the reasons for using regular shaped vehicles - it makes calculating the meta-materials a lot easier.
This was made from CHON, organics, not aluminium or steel, which would arguably be a lot easier to acquire (by mining) on Luna.
Even given the use of mylar and aerogel, Brains didn't think it was feasible to pull together the resources needed to build this. He'll certainly be paying for it for years, if not decades.
There are really good reasons Brains doesn't hand-out the handwavium and processes he uses to make ultra-materials. He's got related processes for the equivalent of battlesteel that he does hand-out. It's possible he may release the ultra-material stuff, some time in the future.
One reason he doesn't release details is there are ways of cutting the ultra-materials, with difficulty, if you know what you are doing. He expects someone will use these, eventually (he doesn't believe 'security by obscurity' works), but he doesn't see any reason for giving people help.
Calculations...
If you assume that there are 20 layers in total (to take account of the meta-materials) then assuming I've not mixed up my decimal points, and given a S.G. of 1.4 for mylar, that gives a surface area of about 75k square metres, which is about 10.5tns of mylar (ignoring structural bracing). If you ignore the mylar and assume 120k cubic metres of aerogel at 2kg per cubic metre that is 240tns of aerogel.
Hmm. Maybe Brains isn't now as poor as I'd previously estimated. [grin]
Going to need the drives to stop it blowing away in even a moderate breeze...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Actually, the current design for the outer shell is six layers, each of which is a triple layer of three ultra-materials, with structural separators, but mostly waved aerogel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
Each of the triple layers is actually made from waved 5um mylar (BoPET, polyester sheet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET
The internal structures are basically similar, with carefully rolled edges because otherwise people will lose bits of their anatomy when touching them.
There is a further layer on the outermost shell of the meta-materials that provide the passive invisibility - that is probably the most tricky part of the build, and one of the reasons for using regular shaped vehicles - it makes calculating the meta-materials a lot easier.
This was made from CHON, organics, not aluminium or steel, which would arguably be a lot easier to acquire (by mining) on Luna.
Even given the use of mylar and aerogel, Brains didn't think it was feasible to pull together the resources needed to build this. He'll certainly be paying for it for years, if not decades.
There are really good reasons Brains doesn't hand-out the handwavium and processes he uses to make ultra-materials. He's got related processes for the equivalent of battlesteel that he does hand-out. It's possible he may release the ultra-material stuff, some time in the future.
One reason he doesn't release details is there are ways of cutting the ultra-materials, with difficulty, if you know what you are doing. He expects someone will use these, eventually (he doesn't believe 'security by obscurity' works), but he doesn't see any reason for giving people help.
Calculations...
If you assume that there are 20 layers in total (to take account of the meta-materials) then assuming I've not mixed up my decimal points, and given a S.G. of 1.4 for mylar, that gives a surface area of about 75k square metres, which is about 10.5tns of mylar (ignoring structural bracing). If you ignore the mylar and assume 120k cubic metres of aerogel at 2kg per cubic metre that is 240tns of aerogel.
Hmm. Maybe Brains isn't now as poor as I'd previously estimated. [grin]
Going to need the drives to stop it blowing away in even a moderate breeze...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind