Battlestar Galactica concept

At the risk of appearing even more foolish than I already appear to be, I am going to propose something here that is probably fanciful.

It is a Battlestar Galactica ship constructed from a series of launches from a Sea Dragon type rocket which could be developed. The Sea Dragon would deliver several hundred ton modules which would be put together in space a piece at a time.

Let's say we have 50 launches. If we were to construct a square made up of equal sized sides that were connected together with each other first, then with the sides making up the square as the final piece of construction. Each side would be made of 12 modules of 50 feet of length, which gives each side a length of 600 feet.

Each module would have robust protection from cosmic rays, and therefore would be heavy. In order to produce artificial gravity, the Battlestar would be rotated at about 2 rpm, giving a Martian artificial gravitation along the periphery.

Also, the modules could be prefabricated on the ground in order to minimize the amount of wet engineering that needs to be done in space.  You can put them together like you would with Lego toys.


The Battlestar will need propulsion. And power. This could be designed into the system, which, hopefully can be kept as simple as possible in accordance with the KISS principle.

In order to ensure minimal costs, there could be a number of Battlestars constructed over time. Then you could set up an assembly line to produce the components and the rockets and what have you that could service the station. Ultimately, the Battlestar should become as self sufficient as possible.

Its function would be as a trading outposts from locations in space. They could bring things that would be needed on Earth and receive their payment in turn as with any economic system.


Update:

There would be a number of objections to this system that I will try to anticipate.  First, why so much mass?  Ans: You need as much mass as possible in order to provide protection from cosmic rays.  Also, you need mass in order to store consumables, such as fuel, water, food, etc.  Thirdly, you need your ship to be large so that it can be spun up to provide artificial gravity.  In general, the bigger it is, the better.

Wouldn't this much mass be a hazard for Earth should the station fall out of orbit?  Ans: Yes, it would.  But it can be delivered to a higher orbit and there are ways that should be practiced in order to do station keeping at a minimal cost.  One of those ways is going to be attempted with the ISS.  The Vasimr propulsion system will be tested on the ISS soon.  If successful, a similar system could be emplaced with each module as it went up.

Wouldn't that be expensive?  Ans: Probably, but Vasimr can be scaled up, from what I understand.  Perhaps you won't need so many.  Besides, there are other ways to keep the station up there. Electrodynamic tethers, for example.   It is true that the technology isn't perfected yet, but why not try it with this?

What good would such a station be?  Ans: A permanent station in space can be configured to do a number of useful missions for those of us on the ground.  If one could be situation in geosynchronous orbit, it could start deploying and maintaining space solar modules which could supply the Earth with energy.  This is but one example of what such a system could do.  Another would be the clean up of the Van Allen Belts and Space Junk.  Still another would be as a station for sending and receiving missions from deep space.  These could be manned or unmanned missions that could be launched and recovered in space, with the results shared with the those of us on the ground.