Space colonies of the Future.

[amshak]

Humanity has the power to fill outer space with life. Today our solar system is filled with plasma, gas, dust, rock, and radiation -- but very little life; just a thin film around the third rock from the Sun. We can change that. In the 1970's Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University showed that we can build giant orbiting spaceships and live in them. These orbital space colonies could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. In time, we may see hundreds of thousands of orbital space settlements in our solar system alone. Building these settlements will be an evolutionary event in magnitude similar to, if not greater than, ocean-based Life's colonization of land half a billion years ago.

http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/

so I think we could discuss About the colonies- Where could we get water In Space? The Energy for the Colonies [Fusion Genarators] and many more about the Life supporting Systems .

 

[Couerl]

If you took all the beach towns in California and launched them in to space it wouldn't bother me a bit. :lol:

 

[MeteorWayne]

Humanity has the power to fill outer space with life. Today our solar system is filled with plasma, gas, dust, rock, and radiation -- but very little life; just a thin film around the third rock from the Sun. We can change that. In the 1970's Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University showed that we can build giant orbiting spaceships and live in them. These orbital space colonies could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. In time, we may see hundreds of thousands of orbital space settlements in our solar system alone. Building these settlements will be an evolutionary event in magnitude similar to, if not greater than, ocean-based Life's colonization of land half a billion years ago.

so I think we could discuss About the colonies- Where could we get water In Space? The Energy for the Colonies [Fusion Genarators] and many more about the Life supporting Systems .

Amshak,
When you copy an article like this one, please include a link to the original source material you copied. Otherwise it violates copyright law.

Thanx, Meteor Wayne (With moderator hat on)

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Here you go MW.

http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/

 

[MeteorWayne]

Since it wasn't you who posted it, it wasn't your responsibility to do that, but thanx.

Anyone who copies an article from elsewhere is REQUIRED to provide a link in their post, and follow other fair use rules.

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Moderator Meteor Wayne

PS, amshak, please read the PM I sent you ASAP.

 

[amshak]

Sorry I didnt know that .I will do from now.

 

[neilsox]

O'Neil had some good ideas, but the amount of material needed rivals the great wall of China and the largest pyramid, so not likely soon, even if we have space elevators that can put 100 tons per day in orbit around the sun. Lots of small colonies may remain forever less costly per person.
We can tether two small colonies together and spin them around each other, producing 0.38 g in the less massive colony and 1/6 g in the more massive colony, as a test for Mars and Moon colonies. Our best tethers are marginal for one g, and a sudden snapping of the tether could be a disaster, but safer tethers should be soon. Neil

 

[amshak]

O.K. Try to build a Space collony using the materials of Junk Sattelite. And the Space Collony is not going to built out of Stone.

 

[MrUniverse]

I personally like Marshall Savage's idea for an orbital colony as laid out in The Millennial Project. It was modular, spherical habitat, shielded with water. The water would stop most of the incoming radiation, and allow light to pass through. The people would enjoy a weightless environment and be sustained with electro-muscular stimulation to preserve their muscles and bones. Weightless space habitats are much easier to engineer and are much more space efficient. Great book, totally worth the read, if with a grain of salt.

 

[yevaud]

I believe this idea comes from Pournelle/Niven (though if so, it's very likely one of their Physicist friends actually thought it up): Find a large, nickel/iron asteroid. Core into the center of mass, and fill it with a large storage container filled with good old H2O. Fill in the bore hole. Start it spinning at a fairly good clip. Focus sunlight onto it using thin mylar mirrors.

What is supposed to occur is that over time, the entire asteroid heats up, all the way down to it's center of mass. The water turns to steam, pressure builds, and at some point the container will essentially explode. And in so doing, inflate the now molten nickel/iron composite into a large hollow sphere.

Voila. Instant habitat.

 

[bdewoody]

Again I feel the need to point out that we have all the necessary materials for a long term "space" colony 250,000 miles out from earth and it would be much less expensive to start there than from scratch in space somewhere. Of course I'm speaking of the moon. I don't know how many millions of people the moon can support but I bet the Japanese do.

 

[neilsox]

We can house a million times a million humans 10E12 on the moon, but zero is likely the number completely self sufficient in this century. Depending on how much support Earth supplies, a thousand barely surviving on the Moon is likely possible by 2099, if we become highly organized to the task in 2010. A man rated space elevator with great specs would help a lot. Neil

 

[MrUniverse]

We can house a million times a million humans 10E12 on the moon, but zero is likely the number completely self sufficient in this century. Depending on how much support Earth supplies, a thousand barely surviving on the Moon is likely possible by 2099, if we become highly organized to the task in 2010. A man rated space elevator with great specs would help a lot. Neil

We wouldn't need carbon nanotubes for a Lunar space elevator. It could be made of materials available today. It could even be tethered to a point at the Lunar south pole. Wikipedia has a good article on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_elevator