Re: [OFFICIAL] Freighters/Merchants question

On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 03:46:27PM -0700, B Lin wrote:

>The most efficient packing of spheres is hexagonal closest packing
>(basically a pyramid of oranges, although the mathematical proof of
>this apparently takes 300 pages) so a cargo ship may actually be a
>command module, a bunch of spheres in a pyramid-like shape, then an
>engine/fuel module at the base.  Each cargo module does double duty as
>both storage and structure.

The problem with packing spheres is that you have very small contact
areas, which greatly increases the stress per surface area; it's not
clear whether gravitic compensation applies to dispersed cargo, but
even with that it seems like a bad idea on structural grounds.

A tesselating solid - which usually means in practice a cube or cuboid
- can use much larger contact areas and thus need less weight in
structural bracing.

R