Starport images

[whtknght]

Here is a challenge for all you artistically blessed. Do you have images of what starport life looks like? Passenger areas, cargo areas, concourses, customs, maintenance activities, etc. What does every day life look like around the starport?

What are your interpretations on what the different class A, B, C, D, and E starports look like.

Share your drawings, sketches, rendering, etc.

 

[alex_greene]

A rouigh guide to what they'd look like, to get you imagining:-

Class A: LAX, LaGuardia.

Class E: Heathrow Terminal 5.

 

[EDG]

Class E: Heathrow Terminal 5.

Er, no.

A type E starport is a flat area of ground with a beacon. It'd be like a dirt landing strip for small planes, possibly with a shack.

 

[qstor]

GURPS Starports is really good for describing how a starport looks at various tech levels.

At higher tech levels I'd say a Class E starport isn't a dirt field but an asphalt rectangle with a small building next to it for the customs/starport office.


Mike

 

[alex_greene]

I was being ironic, you know.

But only a little ironic, mind you ...

 

[GypsyComet]

Ports also come in various sizes, based on class (and thus defining facilities), local population, AND typical traffic levels (that may have little to do with local population).

Sticking to Downports for the moment...

At the basic level, an E port could have tarmac for 2 ships or twenty. Only the area covered by the fence and the number of lockers in the Customs shack will change.

D and C class ports are similar, with the addition of fuel depot facilities and maybe hangars for a C port. With some maintenance capability by definition, a C port also assumes light fabrication capabilities either on site or in Startown. C ports are also the most likely places to find a good junkyard.

B and A ports vary only by an ability to build jump-capable ships. What this actually entails is one of Traveller's long-running "discussions". The ability to build craft and ships from scratch implies heavy fabrication capabilities, which can lead to enough recycling that the junkyard will have vanished or be a lot smaller. A fuel depot is a given for these classes of port, and may be a fairly huge facility all by itself if the port traffic warrants it. In outward appearance, however, these ports need not look any different from a well-kept C port. Uncle Teamu having the guts of a Cutter spread out all over the tarmac in front of his hangar doesn't make the port a B class, but it easily could.

 

[kafka]

What I really want...is a nice online application that would allow me to build in my own Arrivals/Departures schedule for Starship akin to this one for Trains...

Always liked the Shuttle arriving scene in Outland...

 

[GypsyComet]

http://hawaii.gov/hawaiiaviation/aviation-photos/1970-1979/big-island-airports/kona-airport

The same airport gets lumped in with the Keahole airport in the 1990s gallery, but there are a couple good pics of the entire facility from the air. http://hawaii.gov/hawaiiaviation/aviation-photos/1990-1999/big-island-airports/keahole-airport/

One runway, a parallel taxi-way, and the terminal. Aside from ticketing and customs, the entire airport is open-air. While not apparent from the photos, the spaces between the runway and taxi-way are un-tamed volcanic basalts. Definitely NOT landing space, but the map could be used that way if you wanted.

For scale, the jets that usually fly into the Kona Airport are not much larger than a Modular Cutter.

 

[TravellerArt]

Class E: Heathrow Terminal 5.

I'll have you know I spent three years working on parts of that (I'm an airport designer) and it wasn't my fault OK. :wink:

There's lots of current airport architecture which looks futuristic enough to be a Traveller spaceport, here's a few examples:

The Virgin Galactic Spaceport, New Mexico (The real deal!)

Beijing

Bangkok (I worked on this too)

Madrid

& Shenzen in China

 

[TravellerArt]

This is always the classic starport immigration/check-in image for me (by the wonderful Jim Burns)
There is a lot more of this image but I can only find a part of it.

 

[GypsyComet]

While Traveller has always taken the "airport" approach of isolated facilities, there is also the more relaxed approach seen in Firefly on the one world they return to fairly often. The landing pad is literally in the middle of a bazaar-like shamble. Walking out the hatch puts you at street level *immediately*.

 

[whtknght]

While Traveller has always taken the "airport" approach of isolated facilities, there is also the more relaxed approach seen in Firefly on the one world they return to fairly often. The landing pad is literally in the middle of a bazaar-like shamble. Walking out the hatch puts you at street level *immediately*.

that made good tv, but, the downwash of their engines would have cleared the area of all people. As you may have noticed, everywhere but percephane, they landed away from people and structures.

 

[EDG]

Let's not forget to put credits for the images in, eh?

 

[Golan2072]

For some more sci-fi examples, Babylon 5 itself probably has a Starport C (as it can't produce ships IIRC), while Acheron from Aliens looks like Starport D or E.

 

[Gee4orce]

I've always had the impression that Traveller starports don't see anything like the volume of passenger traffic you see at a modern airport. So I imagine starports more like the freight side of an airport, not the shiny passenger bit.

 

[Woas]

I think that may be true for the starship side of the starport. But I don't think it's too unreasonable that the spaceship/inner system and on-planet (because a downport, assuming appropriate TL on a planet, could easily have an 'airport' section) side of a starport would be very busy.

I've always had the impression that Traveller starports don't see anything like the volume of passenger traffic you see at a modern airport. So I imagine starports more like the freight side of an airport, not the shiny passenger bit.

 

[whtknght]

Here is an example of a Starport on a water world
http://www.eikongraphia.com/images/..._Oord_North_Sea_International_Airport_1_S.jpg

 

[EDG]

Pretty, but they must have some damn good wave dampers to get the sea to be THAT tranquil (especially if it's the North Sea!)

 

[kafka]

Think outside the box...perhaps you mean wind dampers...I could easily see this on a world placed high in the sky or even a water world with the pylons sunk deep into the ocean floor but still suspended above the waterline.

 

[GypsyComet]

It is an image that has been with SF since what, Flash Gordon? Certainly Star Trek TOS and Blish's "Cities in Flight". The flying city is even an established part of Traveller. The Imperial Palace on Capital floats, as have two of its predecessors, and references exist for other worlds as well.

I'm not sure I'd want something quite that large and flat floating by grav though. If it had a bit more substance under it perhaps...

As a water installation, I should think you'd want both wind and wave damping in effect. If the terminals and their attached runways can actually rotate to follow wind direction, less wind control is needed for airport-type operations, but you still don't want your runways rolling with swells. Nothing a big jet pilot likes less about a good landing than having to do it three or four times on the same approach just to get the wheels to stay down. Having the runway come up and slap a plane out of the sky during take-off won't be any fun either.

The past depictions of water ports in Traveller have been either pedestal designs (allowing a Star Wars-like VTOL landing) or actual water landings.