Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:Soft woods or softwoods? Quite different things.

For me, soft woods would be my swamp. Softwoods would be the pine that's growing in my soft woods, along with the swamp maple, which seems appropriately named.

For a wood worker (or even a woodworker) "soft wood" is wood which dents easily, while "softwood" is equivalent to "conifer" (and other gymnosperms). There are hard softwoods, such as some Southern yellow pine, and there are soft hardwoods, such as basswood (linden in Europe).

Rob

In the end there are so many uses for wood one would be hard pressed to even attempt to name them all, humans and wood; per-se go way, way back. People have made ships out of the stuff, cars and airplanes and i think the only thing you cannot make out of wood is a spaceship. I love it the most for it's beauty and the fact that a person can make something of beauty with it that can be passed down for generations...........Like hundreds and hundreds of years past the builders lifetime. Painters, sculptors and wood workers can live through their work forever and i would like to suggest to everyone reading this that they might want to pick up one of these trades even if it's just a hobby you work on, on weekends. Make something of beauty that you can give to your children that they can give to their children that they in turn give to their children and so on.
You must admit it a beautiful thing to think about
Thank you all for reading this.

I've only just looked in on this thread, so haven't seen how the somewhat unusual opening posts on planetary distances got transmogrified into a paean of praise for wood. All I can say is that it is a nice change!
I loved your post THX 1138 as I, too, love wood and things made of wood. I've toted the family's wooden furniture from England to here simply for the memories that each table, desk, chair contains.

M

THX1 138 wrote:
People have made ships out of the stuff, cars and airplanes and i think the only thing you cannot make out of wood is a spaceship.

I can't resist. This is the wooden spaceship, made of sturdy oak, that "Barna Hedenhös", the Stone age kids, used - with their Mom and Pop - to travel to the Moon and Mars and home again back when I was a kid in the 1950s. I loved it!

Which makes me wonder - are there trees anywhere else in the universe?

Ann

If you're into Norse cosmology, the Universe is sort of one big tree.

Ann wrote:Which makes me wonder - are there trees anywhere else in the universe?

Definitely!


As for making a crew capsule at least partly from wood, it's probably doable, but not very efficient. I wouldn't count on wood to hold my atmosphere, but it could certainly serve as structural components as well as interior skin. If someone will supply the launch capability, I'll see about putting together the capsule. Any billionaires lurking here?

Rob

The Little Prince had issues with baobab trees I seem to remember...

As Saint-Exupéry warns those who would visit asteroids:

So, as the little prince described it to me, I have made a drawing of that planet. I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the danger of the baobabs is so little understood, and such considerable risks would be run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid, that for once I am breaking through my reserve. "Children," I say plainly, "watch out for the baobabs!"

M

Indeed its pretty strange what this planetary orbital distances discussion has transmogrified (is that a word) into.
Interesting thought rstevenston and one i have never pondered. Now if the limit to how tall a tree can grow rests on it's ability to pump nutrients to its tallest branches (fighting the forces of gravity) I wonder if that means that a smaller planet would have the largest trees and giant planets would have toothpick trees.
Or is it the weight of the planets atmosphere that hinders trees from growing taller?
This discussion has gone to far off track though and i'm going to try to find the answer to those questions on another website

I think trees are limited by their structural integrity rather than by their ability to "pump" nutrients. They do not have hearts like animals. The nutrients can take their time flowing up to the top of the plant with capillary action.

Department of forestry claims that the following is probably the case but freely admits that no one really knows for sure
Trees might go on growing forever if it wasn't for gravity. The higher up trees grow, the more energy is needed to transport water from the root system to its leaves or needles up top. That means the leaves or needles will get smaller and smaller, until the amount of energy they can gain from photosynthesis is outweighed by the energy expended in order to haul up water in the first place. At that point, there's no point for the tree to keep growing, and it stops.