X-303/304 landing ability in Stargate

[PREDATOR490]

Should be pointed out that Asgard beaming technology can ease things considerably. Its been shown to beam entire buildings from orbit to space so using a stationed X304 to shuttle things while its hanging around wouldnt be that hard.

One of the more stupid things about the SG development is the lack of implementation of several BASIC technolgies they have had for a decent while - We can cobble together midway station, duplicate X304s complete with Asgard technology. But we havent figured out how to deploy basic energy weapons in the field beyond the ones we 'steal / borrow', personal shields or transporter technology the Asgard kinda gave us years ago. An orbital transport facility could potentially remove any need to shuttle things up and down via convential shuttle launches to the barest minimum.

[Batman]

...once you get the orbital transport facility up there, which you again have to do the conventional way. Again, that leaves you with an orbital facility that is painfully easy to detect even if you managed to cobble together a cover story for how you got it there to begin with.
And frankly Asgard beaming technology is easier and cheaper than conventional rocket launches, but not all that much less noticeable (the transport beam is clearly visible) and to operate an orbital shipyard you'd have to use it all the time. I'm very much afraid people are going to notice.
Orbital shipyards may or may not be more efficient than ground-based ones depending on circumstances (as pointed out by others in this thread), but as long as secrecy is a concern and given SG Earth resources, building the ships in a secret facility in some mostly ignored desert or other is much easier to keep under wraps.

[Alyeska]

An orbital facility can be built using existing ships, if desired. Why use rockets when you have BC-304s available?

Thing is, they don't need to build them in space. Its a complication and waste of resources. Their design is ground based and the available technology allows fairly large ships to move to ground.

[Batman]

That was sort of my point? Of course you can move operations to orbit once you have 304s available. But since you already have the ability to build them on the surface and get them into orbit casually, why bother with an orbital shipyard?

[Skgoa]

If we want to look at the question from a realistic POV for a second, this is actually an excellent reason to construct anything in microgravity that is not meant to leave that environment. Engineers will always try very hard to get their crafts as light as possible... and structural mass that isn't neccessary in microgravity is an easy thing to reduce.

True, but this reasoning may not apply to warships, which will typically be built more heavily so they're not ridiculously easy to kill. Also to withstand relatively high accelerations, for much the same reason- you may find yourself needing to get well out of the way of an incoming ballistic projectile in a hurry.

I bolded the important part. I am not arguing for any specific position, as no answer to these questions can be found right now. I merely pointed out something that IMO should be kept in mind.

[sirocco]

...once you get the orbital transport facility up there, which you again have to do the conventional way. Again, that leaves you with an orbital facility that is painfully easy to detect even if you managed to cobble together a cover story for how you got it there to begin with.
And frankly Asgard beaming technology is easier and cheaper than conventional rocket launches, but not all that much less noticeable (the transport beam is clearly visible) and to operate an orbital shipyard you'd have to use it all the time. I'm very much afraid people are going to notice.
Orbital shipyards may or may not be more efficient than ground-based ones depending on circumstances (as pointed out by others in this thread), but as long as secrecy is a concern and given SG Earth resources, building the ships in a secret facility in some mostly ignored desert or other is much easier to keep under wraps.

Once they got the first BC303, they could just have hollowed out an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt and build a secret facility up there. There's much stuff out there that next to nobody would notice it.

[Batman]

I wouldn't exactly call a shipyard 4 lighthours away 'orbital', really. Besides, the commute is going to be murder.

[Sea Skimmer]

Once they got the first BC303, they could just have hollowed out an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt and build a secret facility up there. There's much stuff out there that next to nobody would notice it.

That would also leave the vital facility wide open to attack unless it had its own defense force separate from that protecting earth guarding it around the clock. Its not like building this secret facility would be free either, any kind of shipyard is going to cost billions upon billions of dollars and the costs, and difficulty of keeping those costs hidden would keep going up too.

If you have a shipyard underground in Nevada, you can plausibly have workers at the site which had no idea what they are doing and assume they are working on other secret projects in a random government tunnel. Even relatively large metal structures can be explained away as being parts of submarines or internal guts of bunkers at that point. If you transport those guys into space then they all know what is going on, and they can’t be flown back home constantly, as is done for Area 51, to tell the wife and kids that nothing is going on. So now you not only need more money, you need to explain why thousands of highly skilled American workers are completely missing from society.

Really everything favors working on earth as far as I can see it. If you have anti gravity most of the advantages of space construction cease to matter, and the drawbacks are considerable. Gravity is actually useful for some stuff like preventing every last tool and wire and nut and bolt you are working with from floating away. it doesn't just give you air.

[aussiemuscle308]

the Stargate program is secret, and that most of Earth's industry is Earth's industry as we know it. What's easier to keep under wraps? .

...and yet they criticize other cultures for keeping the stargate a secret.

The x303 was also launched from surface in Prometheus pt1. and stolen from a secret military base. i find it highly unlikely these goons could keep a secret as big as the stargate program.

[Xon]

Stolen by people who knew the project virtually inside out and where legitimately trusted for inclusion into knowing about all of the SGC's projects. The NID/Trust had the situation arranged from start to finish. Well except for the fact the Hyperdrive didn't actually work correctly.