m'T.S.S. Hedon

Sanity Check

A cubic mile of ship space is set up as accommodations for ten million humans. The space is divided into 500 floors, 10' apart (8' of headroom plus 2' for utilities or whatever). That's 5000' high, leaving 280' of height for whatever. Each square-mile floor accommodates 20,000 humans. The cabins are laid out in 100 rows of 200 each. If they take up a 5000'x5000' area (allowing space for extras like hallways, lounges, whatever), then each cabin can be 50' long by 25' wide.

This is actually an order of magnitude more insane than what I originally envisioned. There were only going to be one million human passengers. But that left enough room for each of them to have a cabin equivalent to a good-sized house. That's a bit much even for a luxury cruise ship, but it's still useful to know. The residential sections of the aliens' space habitats can comfortably house a million beings per cubic mile.

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Copyright © 2007 by Richard C. McCluney, III