My idea for interplanetary space travel is pretty simple I think compared to most of the ideas I have read here. The portal idea seems to me too much like Stargate. A stargates mod would be cool too but I don't think that is what you had in mind originally, am I right?
My idea can be broken down into a set of achievements each building upon the next. And space travel obviously should be the final achievement [final frontier and all] after you have completed all the other vanilla minecraft achievements. So some of the materials required will only be found in the Nether and/or End.
Achievement #1: Rocket Science
Rocket propulsion requires an insane amount of energy to leave the atmosphere, so the first obstacle to space travel will be getting off the planet, and finding an energy source powerful enough to launch a rocket into space. I think glow stone would be a perfect candidate for this or you could have a new kind of ore or crystals found only in the Nether. Glowstone hasn't had much purpose in minecraft other than a light source. Now it could be repurposed by science for use in a solid-fuel rocket! Modern day rockets use liquid fuel but rockets before the 20th century always used solid-fuel. A modern example of solid-fuel is the little cartridges you put in model rockets. In the real world solid fuel isn't as powerful as liquid fuel but perhaps in minecraft solid-fuel [powdered glowstone] is the most powerful fuel.
There will be no need to program an actual working rocket that flies up into the sky before transporting you into orbit. The player simply gathers the required materials and puts them together on his work bench to create a simple rocket. Then place the rocket on a launch pad, get in and press the launch button. All the player sees is the inside of the rocket as it rumbles and thunders for a bit. When the player exits he/she is now in orbit just above the planet! But most of the rocket was dislodged when it left the atmosphere behind. So now the player just sees a tiny capsule that was the tip of the rocket.
Achievement #2: Build a space-station
Before anything else can be achieved in space you have to have a place to work. The space-station should be of some fixed design that incorporates all the necessary elements one would need to proceed to the next step in this list of achievements. Since plants give off oxygen perhaps some sort of biodome to farm oxygen in your space station. And you will need a space age machine shop. Whatever the end product is it should require a ton of resources you brought with you from your home planet. Seedlings, dirt, and glass for the biodome, blocks of iron for most of the station/ship and perhaps a bunch of hard to get stuff like diamond, lapis lazuli and gold blocks as well could go into the construction. Not sure how you would do that. Can you have a normal workbench require say like a stack of 64 of something in a recipe? Multiple stacks of 64? Maybe you need a new kind of workbench that provides a much larger recipe area.
So assuming you brought enough of the required resources with you, you just plop them into your on board crafting table built into your ship and BAM! your little capsule gets transformed into a huge space station!
Achievement #3: Breaking the light barrier
The key to long distance space travel is harnessing the power of faster than light speed. To achieve this one must invent the minecraft equivalent of a Hyper-Drive! An engine capable of faster than light travel. Since this is a game and things need to be broken down into achievements that must not happen out of order or in the wrong place at the wrong time let us think of some reason that this hyper-drive can only be built in space on a space-station. The simplest explanation I can think up would be that the hyper-drive contains delicately balanced and very volatile energy core that can only be created in a weightless vacuum thus making space the perfect place to create it. We could make obsidian a necessary component in the recipe for the hyper-drive considering how much power it must be able to contain.
The space-station itself could be your star-ship and once you've successfully created your first hyper-drive it could be automatically installed into the engine room of the ship. Then in the control room you access the computer, pick your coordinates [pick one of the 7 known planets], and choose warp speed to make the hyper-jump through space to the next planet. Would be cool if you could show a quick effect of stars rushing past you on the view screen in front of you in the control room while the jump is taking place. In other words at first you just see a bunch of white dots indicating stars, then they turn into a bunch of white lines then back to dots.
Final Achievement: Explore a new planet!
When the jump is complete you and your space station are now in orbit over a new planet! Your space station should have come equipped with pods or small scout ships that when launched take you to the nearest planet. You should see flames through the view window of the capsule indicating you are reentering the atmosphere and then when the rumbling and noise stops you can get out and explore this new planet.
Or you could do it star trek style and have a teleportation room on board where you can beam down to the planet and a hand held computer gizmo that can tell the ship computer to beam you back.
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My idea can be broken down into a set of achievements each building upon the next. And space travel obviously should be the final achievement [final frontier and all] after you have completed all the other vanilla minecraft achievements. So some of the materials required will only be found in the Nether and/or End.
Achievement #1: Rocket Science
Rocket propulsion requires an insane amount of energy to leave the atmosphere, so the first obstacle to space travel will be getting off the planet, and finding an energy source powerful enough to launch a rocket into space. I think glow stone would be a perfect candidate for this or you could have a new kind of ore or crystals found only in the Nether. Glowstone hasn't had much purpose in minecraft other than a light source. Now it could be repurposed by science for use in a solid-fuel rocket! Modern day rockets use liquid fuel but rockets before the 20th century always used solid-fuel. A modern example of solid-fuel is the little cartridges you put in model rockets. In the real world solid fuel isn't as powerful as liquid fuel but perhaps in minecraft solid-fuel [powdered glowstone] is the most powerful fuel.
There will be no need to program an actual working rocket that flies up into the sky before transporting you into orbit. The player simply gathers the required materials and puts them together on his work bench to create a simple rocket. Then place the rocket on a launch pad, get in and press the launch button. All the player sees is the inside of the rocket as it rumbles and thunders for a bit. When the player exits he/she is now in orbit just above the planet! But most of the rocket was dislodged when it left the atmosphere behind. So now the player just sees a tiny capsule that was the tip of the rocket.
Achievement #2: Build a space-station
Before anything else can be achieved in space you have to have a place to work. The space-station should be of some fixed design that incorporates all the necessary elements one would need to proceed to the next step in this list of achievements. Since plants give off oxygen perhaps some sort of biodome to farm oxygen in your space station. And you will need a space age machine shop. Whatever the end product is it should require a ton of resources you brought with you from your home planet. Seedlings, dirt, and glass for the biodome, blocks of iron for most of the station/ship and perhaps a bunch of hard to get stuff like diamond, lapis lazuli and gold blocks as well could go into the construction. Not sure how you would do that. Can you have a normal workbench require say like a stack of 64 of something in a recipe? Multiple stacks of 64? Maybe you need a new kind of workbench that provides a much larger recipe area.
So assuming you brought enough of the required resources with you, you just plop them into your on board crafting table built into your ship and BAM! your little capsule gets transformed into a huge space station!
Achievement #3: Breaking the light barrier
The key to long distance space travel is harnessing the power of faster than light speed. To achieve this one must invent the minecraft equivalent of a Hyper-Drive! An engine capable of faster than light travel. Since this is a game and things need to be broken down into achievements that must not happen out of order or in the wrong place at the wrong time let us think of some reason that this hyper-drive can only be built in space on a space-station. The simplest explanation I can think up would be that the hyper-drive contains delicately balanced and very volatile energy core that can only be created in a weightless vacuum thus making space the perfect place to create it. We could make obsidian a necessary component in the recipe for the hyper-drive considering how much power it must be able to contain.
The space-station itself could be your star-ship and once you've successfully created your first hyper-drive it could be automatically installed into the engine room of the ship. Then in the control room you access the computer, pick your coordinates [pick one of the 7 known planets], and choose warp speed to make the hyper-jump through space to the next planet. Would be cool if you could show a quick effect of stars rushing past you on the view screen in front of you in the control room while the jump is taking place. In other words at first you just see a bunch of white dots indicating stars, then they turn into a bunch of white lines then back to dots.
Final Achievement: Explore a new planet!
When the jump is complete you and your space station are now in orbit over a new planet! Your space station should have come equipped with pods or small scout ships that when launched take you to the nearest planet. You should see flames through the view window of the capsule indicating you are reentering the atmosphere and then when the rumbling and noise stops you can get out and explore this new planet.
Or you could do it star trek style and have a teleportation room on board where you can beam down to the planet and a hand held computer gizmo that can tell the ship computer to beam you back.