LH sci-fi dork-fest... or the making of a space base

After viewing this video, a tour inside our current ISS, I've had to revise my plans for my happy little space-goers. A free-floating space station wouldn't have as much space or large windows with beautiful views of space like I'd envisioned. And it would not be very aesthetically pleasing at all. It would be cramped and cluttered and every bit of available space would be used.

But they can generate oxygen from their urine! That's hella cool! LOL!

So anyway, if I want to keep this story as realistic as I usually try to, then that means staying true to the kind of possibilities we might see in the next 70 years. So I've changed my original intentions a bit, and I'll now have their "home base" built on the moon rather than a free-floating station in orbit. So from this point forward, that's where they'll be. And I'll try to go back and edit the story to reflect that.

The complex is really nothing more than a box right now, out in Abandia City. Never mind the helicopter, I know there are no helicopters in space! ;)

It's the inside of this building that matters - you'll probably never see it from this view in the story. Their pictures will be taken inside it, and you'll imagine that they're on base on the moon. The cement terrain represents moon rocks well.

They have prisoner tokens in their inventory so they won't show up anywhere they aren't supposed to be. Only 6 (7 if you count Alon) are my playables, but there are actually 13 "living" there, and I may add more (non-playables or townies) as needed. And this is where they are all actually living, in terms of their physical place in the game. Though for story purposes, they won't all be "here" at the same time.

And ummm, never mind that road in the distance, lol! I was able to delete the road in front of the building on their lot, but I don't know what to do about the neighborhood road, except keep it out of the pictures. Isn't there a cheat for no roads?

Anyway, as you can see, there's not much to it yet, I've started building their kitchen, and I'll do bathrooms and barracks next, then I'll build sets onto the second floor as needed.

And the sky - it should be black, both day and night, since the moon has no significant atmosphere to reflect color.

This is my best effort with my mad photoshopping skillz (and Mao's sky tutorial), but I can't seem to get it selected around their hair closely enough. And like hell if I'm going to get in there and select it all by hand.

And then it dawns on me that maybe a buyable sky would be much simpler? (Does anyone know of a flat black one?) Or a mod or cheat I could use to turn the sky black (and be able to remove when I'm playing the rest of my families)?

Once I get that sorted out, I might even occasionally get fancy and try to photoshop in some stars or Earth or the Sun or something. Or if I'm feeling lazy we can just pretend they're pointed the wrong way, lol!

For comparison's sake, here is what the sky from the moon should look like: here, or here.

Or maybe I'll just do away with the windows all together, since it appears (from what I've seen so far) large windows like these would be something of a hazard anyway.

That other girl is Christy, by the way, and she has a HUGE crush on Cabe!!! Somebody wants to sleep her way up to the top, lol! And Tyler appears to have the hots for Keri, which she finds flattering. Jeremiah would like to remind her that she's married, he can't even look!

They might be in space, but there's still drama! :)

This is all still being built, so I'd welcome any suggestions for things they might need, or ways I could make it more authentic. I'm especially soliciting any CC you might know of that would work, gadgets especially, communications equipment, computers, etc. I don't have room to download much, but I figure I could use a couple/few good pieces to mix with some of the crazy EP stuff I already have (AL is proving to be quite useful, lol!).

the nitty-gritty:

I understand some of you might not be interested in the techie stuff, and considering most of this story will continue to NOT take place in space, feel free to read this at your own level of involvement.

This is much more research than I really have time to do for this story, but since I find this stuff fascinating, I'll indulge myself. The way I see it, nothing learned is ever wasted! Maybe I'll use all of this in a more prominent way sometime in a future story?

So this base I'm building will be where Keri is stationed permanently. I imagine our moon of the year 2083 has many military bases as well as commercial and tourist properties. Recreational space travel will be available (in real life, even) for the people of 2083, as Stephanie was talking about here, but it will still be very expensive.

In addition to these larger networks of buildings, there might be free-floating outposts in the orbit of some planets as "rest stops." Maybe as far as Jupiter? (Jupiter is 5.2 AU, Mars 1.5, Earth being 1.0) That seems pretty far a distance to travel by 2083 though, considering we're lucky to make it to Mars right now. Though if my troops are going to be flitting around the solar system kicking ass, I think they need at least one base out there, and Jupiter has a few terrestrial moons, so yes, let's put a base out there too!

Wow, Laura = mega-nerd? LOL! I took a couple astronomy classes in college ;)

So anyway, while the rest of the troops will be on base physically (as Sims), as far as the story goes, they're supposed to be out in small fighter ships, kicking ass and taking names with these alien invaders!

The invaders have several slang names, but nothing official yet. In the story, my characters have not made contact with them yet (which means, I just haven't decided who they are yet, lol!) I do know what they're here for though. My characters don't yet. So they're called, among many things, the invaders, the presence, and "little ships" because of their quantity of smallish ships. "Little Shits," my hubby offered as a name, and I can already imagine that nickname taking hold, LOL!


in real life, further reading:

Colonization of the Moon: This Wiki-page is definitely worth a read! Several countries appear to be planning some sort of permanent settlement on the moon by the year 2020. Lots of very interesting information here about the advantages and disadvantages to human colonization of the moon, the way they could collect solar power from the areas most often in direct sunlight, but live in a more shaded place because of temperature extremes. And did you know a shuttle can make it to the moon in three days?!? Sheesh, it would take me three days to drive to California!

But very interesting stuff, and useful for how I'll end up developing my moon base.

the International Space Station: Our current ISS, which is due to be decommissioned some time in the near future (this might be extended). It houses astronauts from several different countries for scientific research in space.

Virgin Galactic: This is really exciting (to me, lol!), this stuff is already in the works! A space ticket is going to cost $200,000 though, lol! And that's just for a 90 second ride into sub-orbit. People have already booked their tickets. I'm not about to hop on the first shuttle or anything, but man, you can count me in! Maybe once the prices come down a little ;)

I've seen Space Ship One here at the National Air and Space Museum - it's unbelievably tiny! I can't believe they took that thing into space!

Space Ship Two is planned to be unveiled in December, and private space flights could begin in the next couple of years!