A hollow discus-shaped object in low Earth orbit around forty kilometres across, filled with air at one bar and covered in photovoltaic cells. Their energy is beamed by microwave to a central "sun" consisting of a large sphere with a glowing surface, made of white LEDs or some other fairly cool electrical lighting system.
Around this central sun, a number of hollow spheres of magnetised steel mesh are steered in "orbits". They are of the order of fifty metres in size, and rotate and travel round the sun by means of jet propulsion, taking the same time to go round as the planets in the solar system. They are surfaced in various ways, and are generally retro in style.
Mercury: This is around fifteen metres across and orbits about two hundred metres from the centre. It's covered in concrete and has artificial moulded craters. The same face is kept pointing to the sun by jets. The sun side is heated to above boiling point and the dark side refrigerated to below freezing.
Venus: Roughly twice the diameter of Mercury and twice the distance from the sun. Heated to tropical temperatures internally, with a waterproof lining above the mesh. An aquarium-style ocean stocked with tropical fish and the like covers the whole planet, with a few "islands" on stilts dotted here and there, planted with lush, jungly-looking houseplants like Sanseviera and Ficus. Animatronic reptilian monsters stalk the land. The water will tend to stay around the planet due to cohesion and its tendency to form a sphere. Food plants are grown here.
Earth: About fifty metres across and half a kilometre from the sun, this is like Venus but cooler. It has frozen poles and a heated equator, with land mimicking the continents on the real Earth but covered in small, futuristic-looking buildings. You can get around by jetpack if you want. It has a proportionately sized Moon with a domed moonbase on it.
Mars: Half the size of Earth, around a mile from the sun, covered in iron-rich magnetic sand and canals, which are enclosed due to lack of gravity. There are also "ancient" ruins scattered about on the surface and robot aliens roam about.
Asteroid belt: A proper one, not like the real one, with motorised rocks strewn liberally in a ring centred on the sun.
Jupiter: A glass sphere about half a kilometre wide, with coloured liquids convecting around inside it. No ring. Small Galilean satellites like the inner planets but ice-covered.
Saturn: A painted, smaller sphere with a solid ring placed around it, probably with Titan.
Uranus and Neptune: Smaller, simple coloured spheres.
Pluto: A ball of solid iron about ten metres across.
The inside edge of the whole discus is painted black and studded with lights to simulate constellations.
People travel around the environment noisily in funky-looking finned spaceships, dressed like Buck Rogers, Dan Dare or wearing "space suits", all suitably naff, firing ray guns at each other. Some of them dress up as the likes of little green men, treems or tentacled beasts from beyond the sky. These get the chance to travel in flying saucers. Everyone wears magnetic boots to simulate gravity on the "planets". There should probably be some Robbie-style robots too. The whole place is used for role-playing, making movies or as a resort.
Would Virgin Intergalactic be interested?-- nineteenthly, Oct 07 2008 the world http://guide.theemi...e_world_islands.php [williamsmatt, Oct 08 2008] Tile of the gods. http://www.space-ar...y/Europan-Night.htmSurface of Europa. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 08 2008] Planequarium Planequarium [theircompetitor, Oct 09 2008] //by means of jet propulsion// What provides the atmosphere?//These get the chance to travel in flying saucers// Anal probing optional extra.-- coprocephalous, Oct 07 2008 The atmosphere is already there. The discus is filled with air at one bar. Otherwise the rockets couldn't be noisy and people would start thinking there's no sound in space.Oh yes, definitely lots of anal probing, yes pleeease.-- nineteenthly, Oct 07 2008 Yes, it is, but with additional options such as a retirement home for people who want to live in the future and are fed up with waiting for it to come. Also for people with species identity dysphoria, who feel they're little green men trapped inside a human body.-- nineteenthly, Oct 07 2008 <Three stooges voice> Why, I Oort ta....!</tsv>
Needs the option to be revised with respect to planet/planetioids. You may have read recently that Pluto no longer exists (as a planet).-- 4whom, Oct 07 2008 //You may have read recently that Pluto no longer exists // Has anyone broken the news to Mickey?-- coprocephalous, Oct 07 2008 This is a retro solar system. Mercury doesn't face the sun, Venus isn't covered in tropical jungles and Mars has no canals. Pluto stays for that reason, and it's made of iron because it used to be thought of as dense to explain the gravitational perturbation. Actually it should probably be lead. They were looking for a massive planet and they found Pluto.
To that end, i think i want Vulcan inside the orbit of Mercury too.-- nineteenthly, Oct 07 2008 actually baked in principle, off the dubai coast called 'the world'. access your individual island by long, expensive boat only. [link].
baked in the sense that, this one is called 'the world', yours would be called 'the solar system'.-- williamsmatt, Oct 08 2008 //off the dubai coast //My, my - you *are* on the ball, aren't you?-- coprocephalous, Oct 08 2008 Where's the cheese?-- zen_tom, Oct 08 2008 The Moon's made of it (and it's green).-- nineteenthly, Oct 08 2008 Europa will need to have it's surface tiled to mimic grinding ice sheets.
I volunteer my services if you pay for the flight.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 08 2008 In the retroverse, Europa doesn't have those. I'm not sure what it does have.-- nineteenthly, Oct 08 2008 [cpcp] i am aware its not like i'm breaking the news. more a reminder!-- williamsmatt, Oct 08 2008 //i am aware its not like i'm breaking the news. more a reminder// I think you'll find the reminder in the title of this idea.-- coprocephalous, Oct 09 2008 random, halfbakery