So let's say we're designing a habitat for 10,000+ people and there
will be cities, town and/or villages at different locations
throughout the structure.

I'm sure that mass transit by way of monorail will be included. I
have trouble seeing freeways and a bunch of SUVs up there :)

But, ... will we be able to do away with individual vehicles
completely? Will we be able to minimize the use of our precious land
area that is devoted to roads? Can a society function without
streets but with an extensive "underground" subway system in their
place?

I used to think we could eliminate many of the streets in a habitat
and replace them with wide paths, but then I started to think about
it a little more and came up with some issues that have prompted me
to write to this forum looking for feedback.

How do we remove garbage from individual residences? How do we make
furniture deliveries, construction equipment movement and material
deliveries, get fire protection and the firefighters to a residence
in distress, ambulance services, etc?

We could have such dedicated vehicles plying the maglev subway
tracks and coming only so far as the nearest subway terminal and
then by foot to the location. We could use fuel cell engines on "the
surface" and restrict such vehicles to official use only . . . but
this requires an extensive road network to be able to accomodate the
vehicles. We could have air services for the life and death police,
fire and ambulance services but what of the other transportation
services required?

I think it would make the whole endeavor of having thousands to
millions of people living in a habitat a much more do-able
proposition if we didn't have to recreate the whole automobile
industry up in orbit. I think an extensive subway system is the way
to go but am curious about people's thoughts about the "last mile"
issue?

Remember that a 10,000 person habitat may only be a few miles across (or
less). I'd put my bets on small, open air, autonomous, electric cars
that are shared. They work like cabs, except the drive themselves (at
pretty slow speed) so you don't need to pay a driver and they can
deliver themselves to your door (or anywhere else) at the time you
request.

On Friday, July 5, 2002, at 01:16 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> So let's say we're designing a habitat for 10,000+ people and there
> will be cities, town and/or villages at different locations
> throughout the structure.
>
> I'm sure that mass transit by way of monorail will be included. I
> have trouble seeing freeways and a bunch of SUVs up there :)
>
> But, ... will we be able to do away with individual vehicles
> completely? Will we be able to minimize the use of our precious land
> area that is devoted to roads? Can a society function without
> streets but with an extensive "underground" subway system in their
> place?
>
> I used to think we could eliminate many of the streets in a habitat
> and replace them with wide paths, but then I started to think about
> it a little more and came up with some issues that have prompted me
> to write to this forum looking for feedback.
>
> How do we remove garbage from individual residences? How do we make
> furniture deliveries, construction equipment movement and material
> deliveries, get fire protection and the firefighters to a residence
> in distress, ambulance services, etc?
>
> We could have such dedicated vehicles plying the maglev subway
> tracks and coming only so far as the nearest subway terminal and
> then by foot to the location. We could use fuel cell engines on "the
> surface" and restrict such vehicles to official use only . . . but
> this requires an extensive road network to be able to accomodate the
> vehicles. We could have air services for the life and death police,
> fire and ambulance services but what of the other transportation
> services required?
>
> I think it would make the whole endeavor of having thousands to
> millions of people living in a habitat a much more do-able
> proposition if we didn't have to recreate the whole automobile
> industry up in orbit. I think an extensive subway system is the way
> to go but am curious about people's thoughts about the "last mile"
> issue?
>

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]

Remember that a 10,000 person habitat may only be a few miles across (or
less).

True enough, but I think the original question would be a valid one for a 20
mile long cylinder. So we might simply re-ask the question for a 10 million
population habitat.

Regards,

Mike Combs

Considering that a habitat for 10,000 or even 20,000 people would be 500 to
1 Km in diameter, everything would be at walk distance (personally, I think
that 1Km is a ludicrous distance and I walk much more than that everyday)
and I see few need for *any* kind of automotive vehicle for a colony in this
scale. People would do well just walking or using bikes.

Perhaps there would be a few vehicles for cargo transportation. But I think
that simply transporting cargo from a point A to a point B of the internal
surface of the colony would be done better by a "robotic arm" (actually, I'm
thinking about something more like those used in ports) hanging over the
ground and able to slide over it along the circumference and along the axis.
That would occupy no area at all - though it would project some shadow.

Lucio Coelho

From: "victoriatangoman"
To:
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 5:16 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Transportation within a habitiat

wrote: How do we make
> furniture deliveries, construction equipment movement and >material
deliveries, get fire protection and the firefighters to a >residence in
distress, ambulance services, etc?

A couple of thoughts on the last mile...

really the only concern is medical emergencies if you think about it. You're
planning a whole city in advance, not doing it through evolutionary steps.
This means that you can plan infrastructure from the get go instead of
adapting systems to new tech.

Thats what Im doing with a new community.

You really have to back away and think it through, different than what you
have done up till now.

If you have regular monitering devices on people and healthy food,
environment , many of todays current health problems wont come up. Granted
new issues will take there place, but a least the old problems are done away
with. :-)

Monitering can let you know when vital signs are in jeopardy. rarely is
there an "attack" with out much forwarning...elevated blood presssure, CO2
levels in blood climbing, etc. let you know its time to check in to a
wellnesss center/ hospital to treat before it gets accute. If you are IN the
wellness center, there really isn't a transport problem.

Second, it will be quicker to get medical trained personal to you and
stabilize rather than trying to wisk you away to an emergency center...the
value of para medics has been shown time and time again for emergency
response. a portable motor scooter or Segway type device at the "subway"
locations allow nedical personal to carry themselves and equipment to the
site, be it a few yards or a mile. Stabuilize you on site and then airlift
you out if necessary.

As far as delivery, medium size parcels could be easily transported in a
seperate "cargo module" of the regular people mover. Automated delivery
robots vehicles take it from the subway to your door step. These delivery
vehicles are small enough to traverse walkways easily. An occasional side
track to allow pedistrians to move past as needed.

As far as furniture... what size are you talking? :-) Most homes have a
limit to furnishings controlled by the front door, usually not more than
36-60 inches wide (double door) Furnishings will be limited by this
diminsions, either broken down to fit, or assembled indoors from smaller
components. Again these sizes can be easily carried by smaller motorized
carts that can navigate walking paths.

Segway type vehicles ( the gyroscoped steadied personal two wheeled thingy
you have seen touted on several TV shows and being considereed by the postal
service) can also take a chunk out of your worries.

As far as fire, built in fire surpressers as well as non combustioning
materials will go a long way. Home sprinkler systems have proven their
effectiveness time and time again.

Construction materials...again the width would be a constraint but its a
rare item that can be fit in a box 5 feet wide, 10 feet high and 20 ft long.
Something special gets airlifted or broken down.

no concerns, be happy :-)

--- panamabob wrote:
> A couple of thoughts on the last mile...
>
> really the only concern is medical emergencies if you think about it. You're
> planning a whole city in advance, not doing it through evolutionary steps.
> This means that you can plan infrastructure from the get go instead of
> adapting systems to new tech.

That is the big advantage of planning. You can include what's needed from the
begining.

> Thats what Im doing with a new community.
>
> You really have to back away and think it through, different than what you
> have done up till now.
>
> If you have regular monitering devices on people and healthy food,
> environment , many of todays current health problems wont come up. Granted
> new issues will take there place, but a least the old problems are done away
> with. :-)

Do you really want to have regular monitering devices on people? Sounds kind
of 1984 to me.

> Monitering can let you know when vital signs are in jeopardy. rarely is
> there an "attack" with out much forwarning...elevated blood presssure, CO2
> levels in blood climbing, etc. let you know its time to check in to a
> wellnesss center/ hospital to treat before it gets accute. If you are IN the
> wellness center, there really isn't a transport problem.

Yes, but these things can also be caused by other things which aren't so
dangerous.

> Second, it will be quicker to get medical trained personal to you and
> stabilize rather than trying to wisk you away to an emergency center...the
> value of para medics has been shown time and time again for emergency
> response. a portable motor scooter or Segway type device at the "subway"
> locations allow nedical personal to carry themselves and equipment to the
> site, be it a few yards or a mile. Stabuilize you on site and then airlift
> you out if necessary.

Bad idea. The value of paramedics is that they can keep you alive for the trip
to the hospital where your life actually is saved. If they try to stabilise
you at the scene before they move you then you'll probably die because an
ambulance is just as good for that stuff and a hospital much better.

> As far as delivery, medium size parcels could be easily transported in a
> seperate "cargo module" of the regular people mover. Automated delivery
> robots vehicles take it from the subway to your door step. These delivery
> vehicles are small enough to traverse walkways easily. An occasional side
> track to allow pedistrians to move past as needed.

That would be a possibility. The computer controling them shouldn't have any
trouble moving past pedestrians and in reality you'd probably make it keep to a
certain side of the walkways to make room for people walking the other way.

> As far as furniture... what size are you talking? :-) Most homes have a
> limit to furnishings controlled by the front door, usually not more than
> 36-60 inches wide (double door) Furnishings will be limited by this
> diminsions, either broken down to fit, or assembled indoors from smaller
> components. Again these sizes can be easily carried by smaller motorized
> carts that can navigate walking paths.

With prefab housing I could imagine removing a couple of the wall panels to
make a bit of extra room to allow furniture to enter. But mostly you are
correct about the size limits.

> Segway type vehicles ( the gyroscoped steadied personal two wheeled thingy
> you have seen touted on several TV shows and being considereed by the postal
> service) can also take a chunk out of your worries.

They may be a possibility for short range travel. But in large habitats I
think you'll have a bit of trouble getting rid of cars. Particulary if the
habitats have rain.

> As far as fire, built in fire surpressers as well as non combustioning
> materials will go a long way. Home sprinkler systems have proven their
> effectiveness time and time again.

Make sure whatever non-combustable materials we use don't cause lung cancer
first.

Also what will we use in the sprinkler systems? Water? If we do then there is
a problem with electrical fires. Smoke detectors are something we'll need but
I don't know if we really want to have sprinklers spaying water out on
electrical fires.

> Construction materials...again the width would be a constraint but its a
> rare item that can be fit in a box 5 feet wide, 10 feet high and 20 ft long.
> Something special gets airlifted or broken down.

Break it down into smaller items. I would see the construction equipment to be
more of the a problem then the materials.

Everyone's raising good points. I'd be very skeptical though of
having automobiles of any sort manufactured in orbit. The
manufacturing and supply chain for a car is immense and requires
high capital costs and a large market in order for it to make
economic sense.

I wouldn't compare the immensity of the structure of a habitat and
the daunting task that it presents for the project with the process
of creating an auto industry up there. They're both huge
undertakings, but the habitiat construction is basically a large
construction task while the creation of a car is a complex process
involving the creation of many industries. It's not as simple as as
just processing the metal which we'll be doing almost from the get
go. Just think about all of the parts that go into your car.

As to the comments about designing the community to address these
issues from the start - I completely agree. We've got a blank slate
and need not bring legacy issues up there with us.

As for firefighting, I also think that there should be some built in
fire-suppression technology in all of the buldings. Perhaps,
alongside the water, electrical, sewar networks, we can incorporate
a halon "main pipe" and when the sensors detect a fire in the
building, a valve opens and the halon gas flows the few feet from
the main pipe (perhaps buried under the sidewalk?) to the building.

But, let's not confine our thinking to just house fires. How about
grass fires, shrub fires, forest fires. Started by nature ( I know,
hard to think of nature in our created environment, but why
not . . . If we've got weather systems up there, will we be able to
control the complexity of the weather to such an extent that we'll
be able to eliminate lightning? I don't know.) Or how about
malicious mischief, sabotage, or stupid kids pulling pranks which
get out of control by lighting fires. Will we be able to have all
of the flora up there so drenched that it would be impossible for
anything to catch on fire? If we do, would we want to put up with
all of the mold and mildew? I think it's more likely that we'll want
to have a comfortable living environment and that'll mean that our
forests and lawns might be susceptable to fire.

I keep thinking that the last mile issue is going to be significant.
A "reasonable" walking distance is probably OK, but having to walk
anywhere near a km to get a a transportation node is just not going
to work. The optimization issue is going to be in finding the
optimum distribution of subway terminals. What I envision is what
the airlines are doing here on earth. The hub and spoke system. We'd
have small feeder lines connecting to main terminals. They'd
continuously run their small hop routes. Then the passengers would
disembark to the multiple main habitat-transversing routes.

But the last mile issue still remains. We could design the community
in clusters so that each neighborhood has a small subway terminal,
at most a ten minute? walk from any point.

Or, something that I'm just now starting to ponder, is having
utility corridors underneath each street/sidewalk (better to access
all of the utilities from a corridor rather than jackhammering and
digging into street or ground) and each house - apartment - office -
factory has a basement that can access the utility corridor. In that
corridor are tracks on which a fairly slow vehicle travels. This
corridor leads to a main subway node. That solves the last mile
issue but the trade-off is a lot of infrastructure has to be built
and maintained.

As for moving furniture and other items, the comment about doors
limiting the size of items is a good point. I guess the same point
would need to be considered in optimizing the size of the utility
corridor so that most everything needed in a building could be
transported in that corridor.

Now if the corridor is the way to go, does it have dedicated vehicle
for each leg of the trip or is it just an "underground" road
network? If their are dedicated vehicles running back and forth,
then we'll need transshipment points to transfer items from the main
transportation routes to the "lastmile" corridors.

I'm not quite sure in my own mind which alternative makes the most
sense. I envision the utility corridor vehicles to be as low tech as
possible and still be automated, while the main routes would be
fast, efficient mag-lev systems.

As for the big item transportation equipment - pipes, construction
materials, dirt, . . you name it, I wouldn't want to have to carry
buckets of cement back and forth on a construction site. And, even
if it's modular, we won't be constructing those buildings from
paper. Each of the components is going to weigh quite a bit. Now,
without roads how do we move the big stuff throughout the habitat?

The idea about an overhead crane is intriguing, but consider all of
the safety restictions on a construction site. Now how comfortable
would we all be having tons of stuff moving above us wherever we
were, because the constuction sites would be all over the habititat
and that central crane system would have to move material between a
number of points. I wouldn't feel too comfortable with the overhead
cranes, and with the bigger habitats, those cranes would be even
higher in the sky, posing a greater kinetic energy potential, which
might even be enough to threaten the structure of the habitat
itself. Any rebuttals on this issue?

How does one get a refrigerator, a bed, modular wall sections, a
concrete truck, fire truck etc along that last mile? As you can
probably tell, I'd really like to minimize the precious land that we
use for roads. Ideally, I'd like to see no roads at all, just
sidewalks, but I'm having trouble replacing the functionality of
road networks, . . . but if we could I think the payoff of land
that is freed up would be significant.

As for the issue of constant medical monitoring, consider the issue
of accidents. No monitor is going to foretell cutting yourself with
a kitchen knife, falling down the steps, a kid poking a stick in
another kid's eye, etc. You sure don't want to have to walk a long
distance to get to a transportation vehicle.

Maybe the vehicles for the serious emergencies are all air vehicles.
The cost would be much more but their speed be fantastic . . oh, but
then where do they land in all of the neighborhoods?

The Segway/electric scooter suggestion seems to me to be workable.
We'd need new anbulances and fire trucks designed that were pretty
narrow to fit on our narrower sidewalk/streets. But how about moving
the big stuff around the habitat?

Well, I've rambled on quite a bit and it's getting late. Looking
forward to hear people's suggestions.

--- victoriatangoman wrote:
> Everyone's raising good points. I'd be very skeptical though of
> having automobiles of any sort manufactured in orbit. The
> manufacturing and supply chain for a car is immense and requires
> high capital costs and a large market in order for it to make
> economic sense.

Not neccessaryily. Sure they do on earth but they could be designed to be much
cheaper and given what our capabilities would be we could probably manafacture
enough for the large colonies if it's decided to go down that road.

> I wouldn't compare the immensity of the structure of a habitat and
> the daunting task that it presents for the project with the process
> of creating an auto industry up there. They're both huge
> undertakings, but the habitiat construction is basically a large
> construction task while the creation of a car is a complex process
> involving the creation of many industries. It's not as simple as as
> just processing the metal which we'll be doing almost from the get
> go. Just think about all of the parts that go into your car.

Many industries which BTW we're going to need to have in orbit anyway.

> As to the comments about designing the community to address these
> issues from the start - I completely agree. We've got a blank slate
> and need not bring legacy issues up there with us.
>
> As for firefighting, I also think that there should be some built in
> fire-suppression technology in all of the buldings. Perhaps,
> alongside the water, electrical, sewar networks, we can incorporate
> a halon "main pipe" and when the sensors detect a fire in the
> building, a valve opens and the halon gas flows the few feet from
> the main pipe (perhaps buried under the sidewalk?) to the building.

Halon would be good. On earth it's illegal due to environmental reasons but in
space with no ozone layer it wouldn't be too much of a problem. Except that
when you spray a lot of it people can die from it and also it can leave a
coating on things that are put out. I can also see CFCs being used in cooling
systems in space since there is no ozone layer to wreak there.

> But, let's not confine our thinking to just house fires. How about
> grass fires, shrub fires, forest fires. Started by nature ( I know,
> hard to think of nature in our created environment, but why
> not . . . If we've got weather systems up there, will we be able to
> control the complexity of the weather to such an extent that we'll
> be able to eliminate lightning? I don't know.) Or how about
> malicious mischief, sabotage, or stupid kids pulling pranks which
> get out of control by lighting fires. Will we be able to have all
> of the flora up there so drenched that it would be impossible for
> anything to catch on fire? If we do, would we want to put up with
> all of the mold and mildew? I think it's more likely that we'll want
> to have a comfortable living environment and that'll mean that our
> forests and lawns might be susceptable to fire.

I wouldn't expect to eliminate lightning without getting rid of natural
whether. We will need to have some way to fight forest fires if our habitat
has any forests. As well as that we should also make sure to design them with
a good buffer zone between the forest and the populus to reduce any death toll
from a forest fire.

Probably an even bigger worry about a forest fire would be the CO2 since the
habitat wouldn't have much air to dilute it into.

> I keep thinking that the last mile issue is going to be significant.
> A "reasonable" walking distance is probably OK, but having to walk
> anywhere near a km to get a a transportation node is just not going
> to work. The optimization issue is going to be in finding the
> optimum distribution of subway terminals. What I envision is what
> the airlines are doing here on earth. The hub and spoke system. We'd
> have small feeder lines connecting to main terminals. They'd
> continuously run their small hop routes. Then the passengers would
> disembark to the multiple main habitat-transversing routes.

What is a reasonable walking distance?

I could see something much like rail networks on earth but completely
underground. Getting people to it is the thing that needs to be worked on. If
roads are allowed we'd just have people drive to the station in their electric
cars. If we don't have cars or roads then we may have to use slower
mini-subway systems to feed the main ones.

> But the last mile issue still remains. We could design the community
> in clusters so that each neighborhood has a small subway terminal,
> at most a ten minute? walk from any point.

Yes. Although that would waste some space.

> Or, something that I'm just now starting to ponder, is having
> utility corridors underneath each street/sidewalk (better to access
> all of the utilities from a corridor rather than jackhammering and
> digging into street or ground) and each house - apartment - office -
> factory has a basement that can access the utility corridor. In that
> corridor are tracks on which a fairly slow vehicle travels. This
> corridor leads to a main subway node. That solves the last mile
> issue but the trade-off is a lot of infrastructure has to be built
> and maintained.

That might be a good idea. The infrastructure could be maintained and would be
built with the colony.

I could easily imagine the main door to a house not being the one above ground
but the one to the basement.

> As for moving furniture and other items, the comment about doors
> limiting the size of items is a good point. I guess the same point
> would need to be considered in optimizing the size of the utility
> corridor so that most everything needed in a building could be
> transported in that corridor.

What about getting it up the stairs from the basment?

> Now if the corridor is the way to go, does it have dedicated vehicle
> for each leg of the trip or is it just an "underground" road
> network? If their are dedicated vehicles running back and forth,
> then we'll need transshipment points to transfer items from the main
> transportation routes to the "lastmile" corridors.

Whatever the colonists want.

> I'm not quite sure in my own mind which alternative makes the most
> sense. I envision the utility corridor vehicles to be as low tech as
> possible and still be automated, while the main routes would be
> fast, efficient mag-lev systems.

Sounds like a good idea. With the big colonies like Island 3 we'd have to have
something fast to go from one end to the other.

Something also has to be thought about with high speed motion around the colony
since it will add or subtract from the gravity.

> As for the big item transportation equipment - pipes, construction
> materials, dirt, . . you name it, I wouldn't want to have to carry
> buckets of cement back and forth on a construction site. And, even
> if it's modular, we won't be constructing those buildings from
> paper. Each of the components is going to weigh quite a bit. Now,
> without roads how do we move the big stuff throughout the habitat?

That is a problem.

> The idea about an overhead crane is intriguing, but consider all of
> the safety restictions on a construction site. Now how comfortable
> would we all be having tons of stuff moving above us wherever we
> were, because the constuction sites would be all over the habititat
> and that central crane system would have to move material between a
> number of points. I wouldn't feel too comfortable with the overhead
> cranes, and with the bigger habitats, those cranes would be even
> higher in the sky, posing a greater kinetic energy potential, which
> might even be enough to threaten the structure of the habitat
> itself. Any rebuttals on this issue?

Given the masses and speed of impact I wouldn't think they'd penetrate the wall
but they could do a bit of damage. That would have to be balance against
fatailies from truck crashes.

> How does one get a refrigerator, a bed, modular wall sections, a
> concrete truck, fire truck etc along that last mile? As you can
> probably tell, I'd really like to minimize the precious land that we
> use for roads. Ideally, I'd like to see no roads at all, just
> sidewalks, but I'm having trouble replacing the functionality of
> road networks, . . . but if we could I think the payoff of land
> that is freed up would be significant.

Roads will probably be neccesssary and we're probably going to need them.
Although we should try to minimise the amount we have. Of course if we have
roads people are going to put cars on them eventually unless the colony bans
them (some will, most probably won't).

> As for the issue of constant medical monitoring, consider the issue
> of accidents. No monitor is going to foretell cutting yourself with
> a kitchen knife, falling down the steps, a kid poking a stick in
> another kid's eye, etc. You sure don't want to have to walk a long
> distance to get to a transportation vehicle.

True.

> Maybe the vehicles for the serious emergencies are all air vehicles.
> The cost would be much more but their speed be fantastic . . oh, but
> then where do they land in all of the neighborhoods?

Electric helicopters would be good provided we can give them good enough range.
Landing is something we'll have to deal with. Note that they'd only work in
large habitats because of the altitude they'd have to be able to get.

> The Segway/electric scooter suggestion seems to me to be workable.
> We'd need new anbulances and fire trucks designed that were pretty
> narrow to fit on our narrower sidewalk/streets. But how about moving
> the big stuff around the habitat?

I don't think you could really make an ambulance any smaller then they are now.
There has to be a way to fit all the equipment in and also allow room for the
paramedics at each side of the paitent. In reality current ambulances are
probably a bit too small.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Ryan Healey wrote:
> --- victoriatangoman wrote:
> > Everyone's raising good points. I'd be very skeptical though of
> > having automobiles of any sort manufactured in orbit. The
> > manufacturing and supply chain for a car is immense and requires
> > high capital costs and a large market in order for it to make
> > economic sense.
>
> Not neccessaryily. Sure they do on earth but they could be
designed to be much
> cheaper and given what our capabilities would be we could probably
manafacture
> enough for the large colonies if it's decided to go down that road.
>
If you assert that cars can be designed to be built much cheaper in
orbit, why can't the same be done on earth? The supply chain for the
autombile industry is immense, with many subcontractors doing
business with multiple car manufacturers. This allows them to
amortize their expenses over a greater volume of production. Do you
really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't. This would
mean dedicated manufacturing processes for THE ONE autombile
factory. Kind of like Henry Ford's Rouge River factory in Detroit.
It was over a mile long and the whole car was made there. There were
no subcontractors and no just-in-time manufacturing methods.

Just as someone mentioned that because we'll be designing the
habitat from ground up we can do things a different way. I think
that human transportation can be divorced from the car by proper
habitat design. All of the land that must be given over to raods,
the additional infrastructure and human capital which must be
dedicated to keeping cars functional can be avoided and freeing
those resources up for other uses.

The cars or trucks that the habitat absolutely requires can be
brought up from earth. Cheaper to launch a hundred helicopters,
ambulances or firetrucks than to develop an entire industrial supply
chain to support a few hundred vehicles.

> > As for firefighting, I also think that there should be some
built in
> > fire-suppression technology in all of the buldings. Perhaps,
> > alongside the water, electrical, sewar networks, we can
incorporate
> > a halon "main pipe" and when the sensors detect a fire in the
> > building, a valve opens and the halon gas flows the few feet
from
> > the main pipe (perhaps buried under the sidewalk?) to the
building.
>
> Halon would be good. On earth it's illegal due to environmental
reasons but in
> space with no ozone layer it wouldn't be too much of a problem.
Except that
> when you spray a lot of it people can die from it and also it can
leave a
> coating on things that are put out. I can also see CFCs being
used in cooling
> systems in space since there is no ozone layer to wreak there.

On second thought, instead of Halon, perhaps a network of pipes
carrying an inert atmosphere under pressure. When a fire is detected
a valve opens in the building and the inert atmosphere floods in.
The literature I reviewed quite a while ago had the oxygen level at
about 12% which was enough to sustain life but not enough to allow
combustion. Human safety would still be an issue with a rapid, big
fire quickly raising the CO level to a point where the haemoglobin
in human blood would form carboxyhaemoglobin, thereby reducing the
ability of the blood to carry oxygen.

With such a networked fire-suppresion technology, central control
would know instantly when a fire occured. Such an alarm could
scramble fire dept and ambulance help in seconds, rather than
relying on a 911 call, taking the information down, dispatching it,
etc. Thus, if the fire was big and the occupants were incapacitated
due to oxygen deprivation, help would be there without their taking
any action. If it was a minor fire, the occupants could call to
cancel the help that is automatically on its way.

This solution might avoid the pitfalls of of a CFC based system.
Even without an ozone layer, would we really want those gases
accumulating in our atmosphere, or alternatively, would we want to
add more atmosphere scrubbing equipment to capture the escaped gases?

>
> > But, let's not confine our thinking to just house fires. How
about
> > grass fires, shrub fires, forest fires. Started by nature ( I
know,
> > hard to think of nature in our created environment, but why
> > not . . . If we've got weather systems up there, will we be able
to
> > control the complexity of the weather to such an extent that
we'll
> > be able to eliminate lightning? I don't know.) Or how about
> > malicious mischief, sabotage, or stupid kids pulling pranks
which
> > get out of control by lighting fires. Will we be able to have
all
> > of the flora up there so drenched that it would be impossible
for
> > anything to catch on fire? If we do, would we want to put up
with
> > all of the mold and mildew? I think it's more likely that we'll
want
> > to have a comfortable living environment and that'll mean that
our
> > forests and lawns might be susceptable to fire.
>
> I wouldn't expect to eliminate lightning without getting rid of
natural
> whether. We will need to have some way to fight forest fires if
our habitat
> has any forests. As well as that we should also make sure to
design them with
> a good buffer zone between the forest and the populus to reduce
any death toll
> from a forest fire.

You know, the whole habitat is going to be engineered, right? So
we'll be planning where the forest are going to be, so why not just
lay high pressure water pipes underneath and have some massive
sprinkler heads pop up to start working on the fire before human
fire fighters get there.
>
> Probably an even bigger worry about a forest fire would be the CO2
since the
> habitat wouldn't have much air to dilute it into.
>
> > I keep thinking that the last mile issue is going to be
significant.
> > A "reasonable" walking distance is probably OK, but having to
walk
> > anywhere near a km to get a a transportation node is just not
going
> > to work. The optimization issue is going to be in finding the
> > optimum distribution of subway terminals. What I envision is
what
> > the airlines are doing here on earth. The hub and spoke system.
We'd
> > have small feeder lines connecting to main terminals. They'd
> > continuously run their small hop routes. Then the passengers
would
> > disembark to the multiple main habitat-transversing routes.
>
> What is a reasonable walking distance?
>
> I could see something much like rail networks on earth but
completely
> underground. Getting people to it is the thing that needs to be
worked on. If
> roads are allowed we'd just have people drive to the station in
their electric
> cars. If we don't have cars or roads then we may have to use
slower
> mini-subway systems to feed the main ones.
>
> > But the last mile issue still remains. We could design the
community
> > in clusters so that each neighborhood has a small subway
terminal,
> > at most a ten minute? walk from any point.
>
> Yes. Although that would waste some space.
>
> > Or, something that I'm just now starting to ponder, is having
> > utility corridors underneath each street/sidewalk (better to
access
> > all of the utilities from a corridor rather than jackhammering
and
> > digging into street or ground) and each house - apartment -
office -
> > factory has a basement that can access the utility corridor. In
that
> > corridor are tracks on which a fairly slow vehicle travels. This
> > corridor leads to a main subway node. That solves the last mile
> > issue but the trade-off is a lot of infrastructure has to be
built
> > and maintained.
>
> That might be a good idea. The infrastructure could be maintained
and would be
> built with the colony.
>
> I could easily imagine the main door to a house not being the one
above ground
> but the one to the basement.

True enough.

> > As for the big item transportation equipment - pipes,
construction
> > materials, dirt, . . you name it, I wouldn't want to have to
carry
> > buckets of cement back and forth on a construction site. And,
even
> > if it's modular, we won't be constructing those buildings from
> > paper. Each of the components is going to weigh quite a bit.
Now,
> > without roads how do we move the big stuff throughout the
habitat?
>
> That is a problem.
>
> > The idea about an overhead crane is intriguing, but consider all
of
> > the safety restictions on a construction site. Now how
comfortable
> > would we all be having tons of stuff moving above us wherever we
> > were, because the constuction sites would be all over the
habititat
> > and that central crane system would have to move material
between a
> > number of points. I wouldn't feel too comfortable with the
overhead
> > cranes, and with the bigger habitats, those cranes would be even
> > higher in the sky, posing a greater kinetic energy potential,
which
> > might even be enough to threaten the structure of the habitat
> > itself. Any rebuttals on this issue?
>
> Given the masses and speed of impact I wouldn't think they'd
penetrate the wall
> but they could do a bit of damage. That would have to be balance
against
> fatailies from truck crashes.
>
> > How does one get a refrigerator, a bed, modular wall sections, a
> > concrete truck, fire truck etc along that last mile? As you can
> > probably tell, I'd really like to minimize the precious land
that we
> > use for roads. Ideally, I'd like to see no roads at all, just
> > sidewalks, but I'm having trouble replacing the functionality of
> > road networks, . . . but if we could I think the payoff of land
> > that is freed up would be significant.
>
> Roads will probably be neccesssary and we're probably going to
need them.
> Although we should try to minimise the amount we have. Of course
if we have
> roads people are going to put cars on them eventually unless the
colony bans
> them (some will, most probably won't).
>
Yeah, I think you're right. People will tend to want to put a car on
an empty road. But maybe we just let free market economics take care
of that issue. Prohibitive customs duties on the importation of
pleasure cars, and no domestic auto industry for the 100-1000?
people whose biggest wish is to have a car up there. No industry
will develop to cater to their needs.
>
> > The Segway/electric scooter suggestion seems to me to be
workable.
> > We'd need new anbulances and fire trucks designed that were
pretty
> > narrow to fit on our narrower sidewalk/streets. But how about
moving
> > the big stuff around the habitat?
>
> I don't think you could really make an ambulance any smaller then
they are now.
> There has to be a way to fit all the equipment in and also allow
room for the
> paramedics at each side of the paitent. In reality current
ambulances are
> probably a bit too small.
>

Hmmmm . . . maybe the habitat designers will have to face the "Ford
Pinto" type of question. An extensive road network will get
emergenciy services to anypoint in the habitat, but at what cost to
construct and maintain, and in lieu of what other uses for the land
and financial/human capital. By eliminating doorside emergency
access, what would be the human cost? Not everybody is going to die
if an ambulance can't come right up to their front door. But some
might. Those few minutes could have been crucial.

As for the big equipment that needs to be moved within a habitat,
how about this as a solution: We know that when we first open the
airlock all of the construction will not have been completed. No
matter the scale of the habitat, I think it unlikely that every
building and facility will have been completed for the maximum
target population when the initial population moves in. So we design
utility roads on the surface where our imported trucks can move the
material around the habitat. Then years later when the land area has
been fully utilized and there is LESS need to move material, the
roads are grassed over and become treeless parks. But the
unobstructed right-of-way would still exist for the occasional
emergency and the trucks would just travel on the grass. For that
matter, we could leave them paved if the asthethics don't bother the
population, and road maintenance is approved. Maybe they become bike
paths, community boulevards, etc.

--- victoriatangoman wrote:
> If you assert that cars can be designed to be built much cheaper in
> orbit, why can't the same be done on earth? The supply chain for the
> autombile industry is immense, with many subcontractors doing
> business with multiple car manufacturers. This allows them to
> amortize their expenses over a greater volume of production. Do you
> really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't. This would
> mean dedicated manufacturing processes for THE ONE autombile
> factory. Kind of like Henry Ford's Rouge River factory in Detroit.
> It was over a mile long and the whole car was made there. There were
> no subcontractors and no just-in-time manufacturing methods.

When there are billions of people in orbit it really wouldn't be hard to
foresee millions of cars.

In the begining I wouldn't expect to see any cars in orbit since the first
habitats would probably be too small for them. But later on the habitats would
be large enough to have them.

> Just as someone mentioned that because we'll be designing the
> habitat from ground up we can do things a different way. I think
> that human transportation can be divorced from the car by proper
> habitat design. All of the land that must be given over to raods,
> the additional infrastructure and human capital which must be
> dedicated to keeping cars functional can be avoided and freeing
> those resources up for other uses.

It can be. Whether it is or not will be up to the colonists (and should be).

> The cars or trucks that the habitat absolutely requires can be
> brought up from earth. Cheaper to launch a hundred helicopters,
> ambulances or firetrucks than to develop an entire industrial supply
> chain to support a few hundred vehicles.

Given how many habitats we'll have and how much of our industry will be in
orbit I'd be willing to say that will only be the case in the early stages.

> On second thought, instead of Halon, perhaps a network of pipes
> carrying an inert atmosphere under pressure. When a fire is detected
> a valve opens in the building and the inert atmosphere floods in.
> The literature I reviewed quite a while ago had the oxygen level at
> about 12% which was enough to sustain life but not enough to allow
> combustion. Human safety would still be an issue with a rapid, big
> fire quickly raising the CO level to a point where the haemoglobin
> in human blood would form carboxyhaemoglobin, thereby reducing the
> ability of the blood to carry oxygen.

12% is what partial pressure? Percentage composition is not a good way to
measure anything to do with the atmosphere. It's partial pressure that
matters.

> With such a networked fire-suppresion technology, central control
> would know instantly when a fire occured. Such an alarm could
> scramble fire dept and ambulance help in seconds, rather than
> relying on a 911 call, taking the information down, dispatching it,
> etc. Thus, if the fire was big and the occupants were incapacitated
> due to oxygen deprivation, help would be there without their taking
> any action. If it was a minor fire, the occupants could call to
> cancel the help that is automatically on its way.

Smoke detectors that automatically call the fire trucks out would be a good
idea. Just make sure they don't send the "there is a fire" signal when the
button to test them is pushed. Oh and if possible find a way to stop steam
setting them off without preventing smoke from setting them off.

> This solution might avoid the pitfalls of of a CFC based system.
> Even without an ozone layer, would we really want those gases
> accumulating in our atmosphere, or alternatively, would we want to
> add more atmosphere scrubbing equipment to capture the escaped gases?

We would probably have the scrubbing equipment there anyway. Personally I'd be
more worried about cigarette smoke then CFCs (and would ban smoking as well).

> You know, the whole habitat is going to be engineered, right? So
> we'll be planning where the forest are going to be, so why not just
> lay high pressure water pipes underneath and have some massive
> sprinkler heads pop up to start working on the fire before human
> fire fighters get there.

That is a good idea. I'm sure the engineers would find a way to make it work.

> Yeah, I think you're right. People will tend to want to put a car on
> an empty road. But maybe we just let free market economics take care
> of that issue. Prohibitive customs duties on the importation of
> pleasure cars, and no domestic auto industry for the 100-1000?
> people whose biggest wish is to have a car up there. No industry
> will develop to cater to their needs.

No matter how much your customs duties are there'll be people willing and able
to pay them to get a car. If you don't want cars you have to ban them
outright.

> Hmmmm . . . maybe the habitat designers will have to face the "Ford
> Pinto" type of question. An extensive road network will get
> emergenciy services to anypoint in the habitat, but at what cost to
> construct and maintain, and in lieu of what other uses for the land
> and financial/human capital. By eliminating doorside emergency
> access, what would be the human cost? Not everybody is going to die
> if an ambulance can't come right up to their front door. But some
> might. Those few minutes could have been crucial.

I would be willing to say the lives saved are well worth the wasted space and
cost of running the emergency services.

> As for the big equipment that needs to be moved within a habitat,
> how about this as a solution: We know that when we first open the
> airlock all of the construction will not have been completed. No
> matter the scale of the habitat, I think it unlikely that every
> building and facility will have been completed for the maximum
> target population when the initial population moves in. So we design
> utility roads on the surface where our imported trucks can move the
> material around the habitat. Then years later when the land area has
> been fully utilized and there is LESS need to move material, the
> roads are grassed over and become treeless parks.

I don't know if I like the idea of having trucks drive on grass. Besides we
are planning to put a solid surface on the road aren't we? That could cause
some problems since grass doesn't grow well on bitumen.

> But the unobstructed right-of-way would still exist for the occasional
> emergency and the trucks would just travel on the grass. For that matter, we
> could leave them paved if the asthethics don't bother the population, and
road
> maintenance is approved. Maybe they become bike paths, community boulevards,
> etc.

Leaving them paved is a better idea. We should also try to keep people off
them since an emergency vehicle could come down at 100 km/h anytime and we
really don't want anyone run over.

Where I am those riding bikes have to do it on the road anyway unless under 12
so very wide bike path sounds like a good idea.

On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 12:48 AM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> The
> manufacturing and supply chain for a car is immense and requires
> high capital costs and a large market in order for it to make
> economic sense.
>
Electric cars are much simpler than internal combustion engines.
Obviously the drive chain is immensly simplified. If you put an
electric motor on each wheel then you don't even need to turn the
wheels. The car boils down to the body, wheels and a simplified
suspention, a battery (or fuel cell), some electric motors, and some
chips and software to control it. In a space colony with controlled
weather the body can be very simple, even open air, particularly if
speeds are very slow (even a 10 mi colony can be traversed quite quickly
at 25 mph).

Also, missing from most of this thread, is the likelihood that cars
won't need drivers by the time space colonies are built. This allows
economic door-to-door service without everyone owning a car (think cabs
in New York -- but cheaper 'cause you don't have to pay the driver).

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 04:59 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> Do you
> really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't.

I foresee hundreds of billions of cars in orbit. The materials of the
single largest asteroid can produce orbital colonies with a land area
approximately equal to 500 Earths. Assuming current Earth population
density (very sparse except in a few places -- look at a map and think
about oceans, deserts, and mountains), that gives us 6,000,000,000 x
500 = 3,000,000,000,000 or about 3 trillion people.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr. Tito
going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

> > Do you
> > really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't.
>
>I foresee hundreds of billions of cars in orbit. The materials of the
>single largest asteroid can produce orbital colonies with a land area
>approximately equal to 500 Earths. Assuming current Earth population
>density (very sparse except in a few places -- look at a map and think
>about oceans, deserts, and mountains), that gives us 6,000,000,000 x
>500 = 3,000,000,000,000 or about 3 trillion people.

OK, but let's rephrase the question slightly--do you see billions of
individually-piloted internal combustion-powered personal vehicles and the
infrastructure allowing that kind of personal choice of transportation?
Automated taxis are nice, unless you're the kind of person who thinks best
behind the wheel, or likes to get your agressions out by trampling
tumbleweeds under your all terrain tires, or fears Big Brother knowing your
exact itinerary every day. Underground personal subway garages are nice,
unless you like the wind in your hair the sun on your face, and bugs in your
teeth. This All-American vehicular freedom is the sort of thing some would
consider a birthright, others a scourge. Can we make vehicles so
non-polluting that we can coexist with them in our sealed atmosphere? Do we
want that much surface area given over to asphalt and overpasses? Are
electric cars just too darn tame for some people? You're not going to
impress your gal with a souped up muffler-less muscle car if they're
banned--is that what you want? If so, what about those that disagree with
you? Does the physics of an O'Neill cylinder allow other alternatives, like
maybe elevators to and from a spine of monkey bars running through the
weightless zone at the center of the cylinder?

Maybe the most exciting thing about this field is the sheer number of
opportunities to wipe the slate clean of earth-bound solutions and start
afresh. This would seem to be one of those.

Dad Astra

http://www.hotmail.com

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 04:59 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:
>
> > Do you
> > really foresee millions of cars in orbit? I sure don't.
>
> I foresee hundreds of billions of cars in orbit. The materials of
the
> single largest asteroid can produce orbital colonies with a land
area
> approximately equal to 500 Earths. Assuming current Earth
population
> density (very sparse except in a few places -- look at a map and
think
> about oceans, deserts, and mountains), that gives us 6,000,000,000
x
> 500 = 3,000,000,000,000 or about 3 trillion people.

I don't understand your point. How does the theoretical potential
land area that could be produced pertain to the question. Are you
saying that the cars will be vacuum capable and will be able to
drive between all of the different habitats? Consider that an Island
3 is most commonly referred to as a 20 KM or 20 mile cylinder. For
most people that will be their universe. I venture the opinion that
given the limited size of the habitats people will want to stress
natural vistas rather than roads, noise, traffic lights, parking
problems, congestion and vistas of freeways, overpasses, etc.

On the other hand, if I'm understanding your response, will people
hop into their cars and drive thousands or hundreds of thousands of
miles between the different habitats, where all 3 trillion of us
live, and try to sample the different restaurants and cultural
activities that are available. This sounds like something akin to
Tom Heppenheimer's Chevy van scenario in his "Colonies in Space."
I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with millions or billions of
these vans zipping around outside the habitats, buzzing critical
compenents, and if present day recreational boaters are a standard,
how many people are going to be involved in accidents, run out of
fuel, and get into accidents. It'll happen, even in the vastness of
space. Consider that in Nebraska, in 1906?, when there were only 10
automobiles in the whole state, there was a T-bone collision between
two of those vehicles, at an intersection of two country roads on a
treeless flat priaire. How many hot-rodding teenagers are going to
run into the window panels, the mirrors, the radiator, etc. It'll be
a hornet's nest of activity.

Or are you saying that we'll be creating aDyson sphre type of
structure to house 3 trillion of us in one structure/world?

I'm trying to understand the point. :)

From: "victoriatangoman"
To:
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 7:33 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Transportation within a habitiat

(...)
> I don't understand your point. How does the theoretical potential
> land area that could be produced pertain to the question. Are you
> saying that the cars will be vacuum capable and will be able to
> drive between all of the different habitats? Consider that an Island
> 3 is most commonly referred to as a 20 KM or 20 mile cylinder. For
> most people that will be their universe. I venture the opinion that
> given the limited size of the habitats people will want to stress
> natural vistas rather than roads, noise, traffic lights, parking
> problems, congestion and vistas of freeways, overpasses, etc.
>

I am not sure if Al was thinking of that, but personally I think that when
the entire asteroidal resources of the Solar System are consumed, technology
for building REALLY large habitats will be old and commonplace.
Diamond/carbon nanotubes are strong enough to build habitats hundreds of
kilometers long - country-sized habitats with a land area larger than any
European country. In a scenario like that, I think that a civilization using
personal automotive vehicles (or "cars" ;-) would almost certainly develop.

(...)
> Or are you saying that we'll be creating aDyson sphre type of
> structure to house 3 trillion of us in one structure/world?
>

A Dyson sphere would be marvelous, but we have neither enough matter in the
Solar System nor the gravity-control technology that would be needed to
build a full-scale, solid Dyson Sphere.

(...)
Lucio Coelho

> When there are billions of people in orbit it really wouldn't be
hard to
> foresee millions of cars.

OK. I can't argue with you on the possibility of foreseeing such an
outcome. But consider that we won't instantly go from our lifestyles
today here on earth, to a situation where there are billions of
people in orbit wanting the lifestyle we have today.

I believe it would be more likely that orbital societies will
evolve. They'll start small, with everything within walking
distance, and with no public transportation. As their size grows, I
think the first step will be some form of mass transit. At this
stage they'll have to import the equipment or develop domestic
manufacturing for it. I'll argue that these orbital societies will
evolve with a mindset unique to their situations and constraints.
Mag-lev transit will become the norm and be designed and expanded to
accommidate ever larger habitats. So by the time we do have billions
of people living in orbit, I just wonder how, all of a sudden, a
switch somewhere will be flipped, and freeways and cars and traffic
lights, etc will be introduced. That people's thinking and the way
they live their day to day lives, will be suddenly transform. To me
it would seem to be taking a step backward, to replicating the
societies of earth. What may make sense on earth, doesn't
necessarily have to make sense in orbit.

I wouldn't want to take a step backward and live like an Amishman,
riding around in a horse and buggy. Too much inconvenience and too
slow for my tastes. I suspect that all of the hassles of cars will
be looked upon in the same manner by those used to years of high
speed mag-lev transit, being only 20 minutes from any two points in
an Island 3, with no parking, operating or maintenance problems.

And for the social aspects that people attach to their cars, I'm
sure alternatives will be developed in the early years in orbit when
it would be completely impractical to design for cars. I'm sure
teenagers will have some alternative to cruising on a Saturday
night, or making out in their cars, and that a drive in the country
with the family will be replaced by some other activity which meets
the same emotional need. And that taking the kids to sports practice
can still be accomplished, or filling the car with groceries.

Life won't stop without cars.

And for the record, I have a car, I like my car, I like the freedom
it gives me, I like to go on the windy roads, and let my mind roam
and enjoy many aspects of car ownership. But, I hate traffic,
congestion, noise, unsightly urban sprawl, and the direct and hidden
expenses of maintaining an automobile society. If I had to live in a
cocoon in space that was twenty miles long, I'd want to maximize my
views of trees, and rivers, and not of overpasses and parking and
congestion.

I think that we're all encountering two types of responses to this
thread. One is an emotional, gut-level type and another is one where
we are trying to find pro-and-cons for our positions. I'm guilty of
both, and I think my bias shows me to be one who'd be happy to
eliminate all of the infrastructure required for personal auto
ownership in orbit. But I'm trying to see if that can happen. And if
we can't design a functional habitat without autos, then what will
be the expense of designing for autos. Will we find ourselves in a
situation where we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Where
the habitat can only grow so large before autos are absolutely
necessary but the expense of designing that habitat and the industry
for autos will make each vehicle cost a million dollars, so that
very few of us will be able to afford one. Will we be forever then
limited to a size of habitat that is functional without cars?
>
> > The cars or trucks that the habitat absolutely requires can be
> > brought up from earth. Cheaper to launch a hundred helicopters,
> > ambulances or firetrucks than to develop an entire industrial
supply
> > chain to support a few hundred vehicles.
>
> Given how many habitats we'll have and how much of our industry
will be in
> orbit I'd be willing to say that will only be the case in the
early stages.

But it's not a given. How many will we have? How will their
societies evolve? What types of industry? What economic factors will
be considered in deciding whether to import or develop domestic
capacity? Who will make that decision? Without exploring these
issues, we just get into dialogues of my fantasy versus your fantasy
and nobody gets any benefit from discussion. Nobody's thinking
evolves. I'm posing questions but admitting I don't have the
answers. But if you want me to buy into your vision, please convince
me out it. I just can't buy into billions of people living in orbit
without some explanation of how and why they got there.
>
> > On second thought, instead of Halon, perhaps a network of pipes
> > carrying an inert atmosphere under pressure. When a fire is
detected
> > a valve opens in the building and the inert atmosphere floods
in.
> > The literature I reviewed quite a while ago had the oxygen level
at
> > about 12% which was enough to sustain life but not enough to
allow
> > combustion. Human safety would still be an issue with a rapid,
big
> > fire quickly raising the CO level to a point where the
haemoglobin
> > in human blood would form carboxyhaemoglobin, thereby reducing
the
> > ability of the blood to carry oxygen.
>
> 12% is what partial pressure? Percentage composition is not a
good way to
> measure anything to do with the atmosphere. It's partial pressure
that
> matters.

I think that the partial pressure would have to be greater than that
experienced in the habitat. This would insure that the inert
atmosphere flooding into a fire situation would displace the
existing atmosphere. I don't have more specifics on the technology.
Do you think it is a valid concept? Could it be implementable? No
city on earth has a municipal fire-supression pipeline network, but
a habitat's requirements will be different, and fire will probably
more of a threat. Besides, we're designing from the ground up. Could
it work?
>
> > Hmmmm . . . maybe the habitat designers will have to face
the "Ford
> > Pinto" type of question. An extensive road network will get
> > emergenciy services to anypoint in the habitat, but at what cost
to
> > construct and maintain, and in lieu of what other uses for the
land
> > and financial/human capital. By eliminating doorside emergency
> > access, what would be the human cost? Not everybody is going to
die
> > if an ambulance can't come right up to their front door. But
some
> > might. Those few minutes could have been crucial.
>
> I would be willing to say the lives saved are well worth the
wasted space and
> cost of running the emergency services.

And what would those costs be? What if it amounts to costing you 25%
of your income? A whole infrastructure costing billions of dollars
to save, let's say, 5 lives a year. These are difficult questions.
I'm all for minimizing risks to human life, and I'm willing to
consider paying a cost for it, but I won't go as far as paying any
cost to marginally reduce further risks. To put it another way,
airline travel is very safe, but accidents do still happen. If a
technology could be implemented that would reduce crashes by 10% of
the already low rate, would you be willing to pay a 500% ticket
increase. I wouldn't. The safety of flying is good enough for me and
the thought of paying 5X more for a ticket to reduce my risk of
death from flying from 1 in 100,000,000 to one in 111,111,111 is
just not viable.
>
> > As for the big equipment that needs to be moved within a
habitat,
> > how about this as a solution: We know that when we first open
the
> > airlock all of the construction will not have been completed. No
> > matter the scale of the habitat, I think it unlikely that every
> > building and facility will have been completed for the maximum
> > target population when the initial population moves in. So we
design
> > utility roads on the surface where our imported trucks can move
the
> > material around the habitat. Then years later when the land area
has
> > been fully utilized and there is LESS need to move material, the
> > roads are grassed over and become treeless parks.
>
> I don't know if I like the idea of having trucks drive on grass.
Besides we
> are planning to put a solid surface on the road aren't we? That
could cause
> some problems since grass doesn't grow well on bitumen.

In rereading what I wrote, perhaps I didn't make my point well. What
I meant to convey is that the roads are in place in the beginning of
the habitat in order to facilitate ongoing interior construction.
But when the habitat has completed its internal construction, then
the roads are either left in place or destroyed, but the right of
way will continue to exist. I mean, how often will that road need to
be used to transport equipment to a forest fire? To transfer a large
sewer main to an area that has one ruptured, etc. I never proposed
grass highways be used on a daily basis. Only for heavy transport
emergency access. How often would that occur? A few times a year.
Once a month? I foresee the continued need to occasionally transport
large equipment throughout the habitat, but not on a frequent basis.

Also, why would we use bitumen? I'm not against it, but just because
it's done on earth, doesn't mean it has to be done that way at L5.
Could be cement, crushed rock, mooncrete, etc.
>
> > But the unobstructed right-of-way would still exist for the
occasional
> > emergency and the trucks would just travel on the grass. For
that matter, we
> > could leave them paved if the asthethics don't bother the
population, and
> road
> > maintenance is approved. Maybe they become bike paths, community
boulevards,
> > etc.
>
> Leaving them paved is a better idea. We should also try to keep
people off
> them since an emergency vehicle could come down at 100 km/h
anytime and we
> really don't want anyone run over.

I think we've crossed our wires. I'm prosposing a scenario where
all "standard size" transportation is taken care of via other means,
but the "oversize" transportation issue is addressed via central
roads, and right-of-ways. There would be no emergency vehicles
zipping by at 100 km/h.
>
> Where I am those riding bikes have to do it on the road anyway
unless under 12

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:
> From: "victoriatangoman"
> To:
> Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 7:33 PM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Transportation within a habitiat
>
> (...)
> > I don't understand your point. How does the theoretical potential
> > land area that could be produced pertain to the question. Are you
> > saying that the cars will be vacuum capable and will be able to
> > drive between all of the different habitats? Consider that an
Island
> > 3 is most commonly referred to as a 20 KM or 20 mile cylinder.
For
> > most people that will be their universe. I venture the opinion
that
> > given the limited size of the habitats people will want to stress
> > natural vistas rather than roads, noise, traffic lights, parking
> > problems, congestion and vistas of freeways, overpasses, etc.
> >
> I am not sure if Al was thinking of that, but personally I think
that when
> the entire asteroidal resources of the Solar System are consumed,
technology
> for building REALLY large habitats will be old and commonplace.
> Diamond/carbon nanotubes are strong enough to build habitats
hundreds of
> kilometers long - country-sized habitats with a land area larger
than any
> European country. In a scenario like that, I think that a
civilization using
> personal automotive vehicles (or "cars" ;-) would almost certainly
develop.
>

In a scenario like that I would go so far to say "could almost
certainly develop" rather than "would almost certainly develop."

I'm not so sure that we've reached the ultimate level of comfort and
convencience with our car culture. After hundred of years of society
developing in orbit, with constraints not faced on earth, I can't
quite get comfortable with the concept, that they would, when given
the capacity to do so, go back to what we think is the ultimate in
comfort and convenience, and introduce a car culture. But they
COULD. :)

> (...)
> > Or are you saying that we'll be creating aDyson sphre type of
> > structure to house 3 trillion of us in one structure/world?
> >
> A Dyson sphere would be marvelous, but we have neither enough
matter in the
> Solar System nor the gravity-control technology that would be
needed to
> build a full-scale, solid Dyson Sphere.

Yeah, true, but neither can we build a habitat for 3 trillion people
either. :))) So where does that leave our debate?

From: "victoriatangoman"
To:
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 8:43 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Transportation within a habitiat
(...)

> I'm not so sure that we've reached the ultimate level of comfort and
> convencience with our car culture. After hundred of years of society
> developing in orbit, with constraints not faced on earth, I can't
> quite get comfortable with the concept, that they would, when given
> the capacity to do so, go back to what we think is the ultimate in
> comfort and convenience, and introduce a car culture. But they
> COULD. :)
>

Oh, well, the car culture is not a pleasant idea to me either, but I wrote
"that a civilization using personal automotive vehicles (or "cars" ;-) would
almost certainly develop". That is not necessarily the same thing of saying
that a "car culture" would develop. My concept of a "car culture" is a
culture where a person without a car is basically crippled, that is:

- Anything is many leagues far from anything. "Walk distance" is an utopia.
- Public transportation is nonexistent or extremely deficient.
- There aren't walkways in most of the streets.
- Driver's licences are THE id document.

When I visited Orlando, in the U.S., in 1996, all of the three items above
where met by local conditions.

(...)
> Yeah, true, but neither can we build a habitat for 3 trillion people
> either. :))) So where does that leave our debate?
>

Well, we can (theoretically) build the country-sized (say, over 100,000
square kilometer surface area) space habitats housing tens of millions. So,
the potential need for cars in space habitats still permeates the debate.
;-)

(...)
Lucio Coelho

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:
> From: "victoriatangoman"
> To:
> Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 8:43 PM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Transportation within a habitiat
> (...)
>
> > I'm not so sure that we've reached the ultimate level of comfort
and
> > convencience with our car culture. After hundred of years of
society
> > developing in orbit, with constraints not faced on earth, I can't
> > quite get comfortable with the concept, that they would, when
given
> > the capacity to do so, go back to what we think is the ultimate
in
> > comfort and convenience, and introduce a car culture. But they
> > COULD. :)
> >
> Oh, well, the car culture is not a pleasant idea to me either, but
I wrote
> "that a civilization using personal automotive vehicles
(or "cars" ;-) would
> almost certainly develop". That is not necessarily the same thing
of saying
> that a "car culture" would develop. My concept of a "car culture"
is a
> culture where a person without a car is basically crippled, that
is:
>
> - Anything is many leagues far from anything. "Walk distance" is
an utopia.
> - Public transportation is nonexistent or extremely deficient.
> - There aren't walkways in most of the streets.
> - Driver's licences are THE id document.
>
> When I visited Orlando, in the U.S., in 1996, all of the three
items above
> where met by local conditions.

OK. The computer screen running your AUTOCAD program is blank. We're
sitting in a meeting with the other habitat planners. What we decide
at these meetings is going to influence habitat life for centuries.
Our alternatives are many, but two stand out in stark contrast. The
first is what you described above, and the second is one where mag-
lev is integrated into the life-style of the inhabitants. Either
way, car or mag-lev, convenience must be addressed, but so too must
a score of other issues.

So, all of us planners are designing the habitat, and in
progression, all of the industrial capacity that will be required.
We're also doing the economic analysis to determine the trade-offs
between the multiple scenarios. Our manager assigns to you the task
of making a case for developing the infrastructure to build autos,
the infrastructure to support them, how to handle all of the waste
from batteries, tires, environmental issues from tires degrading on
road surfaces, and for internal cost control, land has been assigned
a value, and you'll have to include the cost of the land for all of
the streets, community parking, at home parking, service stations,
inspection stations, etc. All of this in addition to the car
dealerships, the car factories, the tire factories.

I on the other hand have been assigned the task by the same manager
to prepare the brief for how to implement the mag-lev concept and to
insure it be comparably convenient for the citizen as your car brief
must be. I breath an inner sigh of relief, because I think I'll have
an easier time making my case on the facts than you will. :)

Is anybody game. I'm willing to play this scenario out. It might be
fun to actually try to make a case to convince the two different
camps in this debate.
>
> (...)
> > Yeah, true, but neither can we build a habitat for 3 trillion
people
> > either. :))) So where does that leave our debate?
> >
> Well, we can (theoretically) build the country-sized (say, over
100,000
> square kilometer surface area) space habitats housing tens of
millions. So,
> the potential need for cars in space habitats still permeates the
debate.

Thread :
>monitering devices on people and healthy food,

> Do you really want to have regular monitering devices on people? Sounds
kind
> of 1984 to me.

Hey were in 2002, 1984 never happened :-) Actually these devices are
already in use. Many people also have medi-alert buttons on a neck chain
(Help Ive fallen and I cant get up!) There are companies that will implant
subdermal locators, supposedly to dissuade kidnappers. Besides, we can
pretty much assume much of todays potential for ultra privacy to be long
gone... unless you somehow sneak aboard , you will have been looked over
countless times. If your born, its such a relatively small community that a
number of people will know you were pregnant and will wonder what happened
when there is no sign of the child (miscarraige?) Try getting away with
ANYTHING in a small town and you realize the gossiping neighbors are far
more intuitive than any 1984 bogeyman could be.

Besides , it can be a voluntary thing as part of health maintennace...what
person stepping off the treadmill breathless would not go to see what was
wrong? It could also be a personal monitering device that pages your family
members first for a quick decission to call in additional help or not. Cut
your hand off in the cuisinart? You or your family would gather it up in a
ice bag and walk you to the nearest transport station. Even today, you
pretty much walk into the emergency room from your car...

> Yes, but these things can also be caused by other things which aren't so
> dangerous.

Yes but you would have been notified that something was wrong and to take
adecuate precautions. You get in your car and you notice the tire is
low...doesnt mean you dont drive, or call the autoclub, or change the
tire... it just means that your first stop is to an airpump :-) Same with
moniters. Perhaps your CO2 level is high because you didnt sleep well due to
a bad sneezing bout....you would still check it out for what ever gave you
the warning notice. After checking you can decide to ignore (stupid) or take
further action.

>quicker to get medical trained personal to you and
> > stabilize rather than trying to wisk you away to an emergency center...

> Bad idea. The value of paramedics is that they can keep you alive for the
trip
> to the hospital where your life actually is saved.

I think we are saying the same thing here... the segway transporter is
akin to a guerney to take you from the accident site to transport system
If you are in a high rise condo, out in the country, or other place not
presently ON a highway, there is going to be an intermediary step. A segway
type device rolling at 15-20 mph would cover a mile in around 4 minutes.
That could be the time from the upper flors of a apt building, domicile to
the transport station.

> > As far as furniture... what size are you talking? :-) Most homes have a
> > limit to furnishings controlled by the front door, usually not more than
> > 36-60 inches wide (double door) Furnishings will be limited by this
> > diminsions, either broken down to fit, or assembled indoors from smaller
> > components. Again these sizes can be easily carried by smaller motorized
> > carts that can navigate walking paths.
>
> With prefab housing I could imagine removing a couple of the wall panels
to
> make a bit of extra room to allow furniture to enter. But mostly you are
> correct about the size limits.
>
> > Segway type vehicles ( the gyroscoped steadied personal two wheeled
thingy
> > you have seen touted on several TV shows and being considereed by the
postal
> > service) can also take a chunk out of your worries.
>
> They may be a possibility for short range travel. But in large habitats I
> think you'll have a bit of trouble getting rid of cars. Particulary if
the
> habitats have rain.
>

> Also what will we use in the sprinkler systems? Water?

How about nitrogen? generally its a heavier gas and would have a tendency to
lie close to the ground, where most fires are based. A quick blast of
nitrogen would squelch the fire poste haste. Most people can survive a
minute or two without air, a fire is immidiately sufficated ; no length of
time required at all. Electrical, or whatever is killed. Ofcourse ground
fault interiupters would diffuse the origin in most cases.

Then we need to think this out again and not take along our "baggage".
Lights would all be fibre optic, either from a central light source or from
"outdoors" focused in side. No light bulbs, elimantes most electrical
wiring, no heat generated, nothing to knock over or bulbs to burn out either
:-)

Micro chips in your smart house would be doing constant diagnostics on
electroonic equipment and warn of impending failure (zounds of Hal 2000) .
Disgruntled engineeers could have you replacing components that are perfect
just to drum up more buisness :-)

TV and other entertainment screens will probably be projected hollogram 3-d
by then anyway as well.

That leaves kinky sex with hot wax from lighted candles I suppose. Dropping
a candle could potentially catch on clothes, etc. The nitrogen system then
comes into play again. Smart houses could evacuate the nitrogen after a few
seconds to ensure the home owners dont sufficate incase they are
unconscious.

The main thing to remember in all of this is that EVERYthing cant be
covered, and some people will just die. Shame but not possible to create a
complete UTOPIA... where there are humans, there will be exceptions to
perfection.

> Break it down into smaller items. I would see the construction equipment
to be
> more of the a problem then the materials.

What construction equipment? All the original work is done at pre
construction,,,no reason for heavy equipment (?) to go into an established
neighborhood to work. >

You raise a number of good points with all of the snipped points. :)
>
> What construction equipment? All the original work is done at pre
> construction,,,no reason for heavy equipment (?) to go into an
established
> neighborhood to work. >

You don't think 10,000 houses, 100,000 houses, etc all landscaping,
neighborhood redesign will be finished before settlement begins. I
don't. I think a crew of 1,000? will move in immediately and
continue to build out the interior of the habitat.

How about a meteor busting through? That would entail both interior
and exterior repair work. Electrical conduits, sewer mains busting,
water pipes rupturing, etc. A landslide on one of our engineered
hills where the dirt didn't adhere to the substructure. A mag-lev
derailment. How's that for starters on why you'd still need heavy
equipment after the habitat was built.

consider like any development...one phase is done first before another... in
the space island it would not be much different than a regular island
development... first a small construction town with basic infrastructure,
then the first neighbor hood build out, then next parcel over you start the
next neighborhood, etc continuing. in each neighbor hood/ phase you lay in
the sub infrastructure, then homes. As you go around the normal re hab
cycle you tear down the older areas completely and rebuild.

If you have a breach then you have a serious problem :-) who cares what
emergency procedures you do, what house you run over to get to the breach.

Its hard to back away and divource oneself from baggage of before. This is
truely a new paradyme, new thinking process and new procedures...

Think of how someone in the 1800 would consider what we do now? I time
traveler would wonder where we tie up our horses with the lack of hitching
posts, horse troughs, and barns / livery stables. They would look at a city,
look at the density and wonder what happens to all the horse manure for each
citizens horse? Would wonder how many whales we catch for the lamps for so
many people, etc.

Its hard to think from one perspective into another....
:-)

Al Globus Wrote:
> Electric cars are much simpler than internal combustion engines. Obviously
> the drive chain is immensly simplified. If you put an electric motor on each
> wheel then you don't even need to turn the wheels. The car boils down to the
> body, wheels and a simplified suspention, a battery (or fuel cell), some
> electric motors, and some chips and software to control it. In a space
colony
> with controlled weather the body can be very simple, even open air,
> particularly if speeds are very slow (even a 10 mi colony can be traversed
> quite quickly at 25 mph).

Having a motor on each wheel would be a good idea but turning them is probably
the most efficent way to steer. Of course we don't need a directed connected
steering wheel and could have a computer just turn them.

As for the body of the car if it were in an Island III which would have whether
you'd want a roof on it. I'd also expect people to be doing about 50 km/h most
of the time and in an Island 3 80 km/h would probably be used on the road
between each end so you need to make sure it's going to crumple where it should
and stay rigid where the people are. I don't think the body would be that hard
though.

Al Globus Wrote:
> Also, missing from most of this thread, is the likelihood that cars won't
need
> drivers by the time space colonies are built. This allows economic
> door-to-door service without everyone owning a car (think cabs in New York --
> but cheaper 'cause you don't have to pay the driver).

This would probably require some infrastructure to work but we could build that
into any road network.

Brad Walsh Wrote:
> OK, but let's rephrase the question slightly--do you see billions of
> individually-piloted internal combustion-powered personal vehicles and the
> infrastructure allowing that kind of personal choice of transportation?

We won't be using internal combustion I can gurantee that. Any cars would be
electric. As for the infrastructure, we don't know whether we'd have it.

Brad Walsh Wrote:
> Can we make vehicles so non-polluting that we can coexist with them in our
> sealed atmosphere?

Easily. Although we may want to try to minimise the use of certain plastics
due to outgassing concerns.

Brad Walsh Wrote:
> Are electric cars just too darn tame for some people?

They get you where you want to go. I think that's enough.

In terms of performance electric cars can beat internal combustion without a
problem. Think of the GM Impact, it can out accelerate a Nissan 300ZX.
Despite the common perception electric cars don't have to be slow. The GM
Impact could probably beat pretty much anything on the road off the line with
ease.

Of course if I have my way nothing will ever be going above the maximum speed
limit of a colony. I'd require a speed limiter installed in every car which
would be set to the maximum speed limit of the colony.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> But consider that we won't instantly go from our lifestyles today here on
> earth, to a situation where there are billions of people in orbit wanting the
> lifestyle we have today.

True. But that won't stop them taking some aspects of our lifestyles.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> I believe it would be more likely that orbital societies will evolve. They'll
> start small, with everything within walking distance, and with no public
> transportation.

What would you call the lift up to the centre of rotation? I wouldn't expect
any colony to ever be without public transport since getting to the centre of
rotation would require it to be used. Of course if you mean no subways,
trains, trams, busses, etc then it may be possible but even something the size
of a stanford torus (about the smallest we'd consider a space settlement) will
probably still have some kind of subway system.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> I'll argue that these orbital societies will evolve with a mindset unique to
> their situations and constraints.

I would expect that as well.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> Mag-lev transit will become the norm and be designed and expanded to
> accommidate ever larger habitats.

I wouldn't expect any trains to be mag-lav simply because it may not actually
offer any advantage. Take for example an Island 3 habitat. Assume we ran a
train track from each end of it which would be 32 km. In all likelyhood we'll
have train stations along the length of the line not just at each end. One
every 6.4 km. This means the train leaves a station accelerates up to maximum
speed then has to slow down for the next one. Given that you don't want to
accelerate too fast the train won't be able to go at the speeds that mag-lev is
capable of. In fact it probably wouldn't even be limited in performance by
running on tracks. It could go from one station to the next in about 5 minutes
and across the whole line in about half an hour which is quite reasonable
(would exceed 100 km/h). There really wouldn't be much use for mag-lev with
such a system.

The country sized habitats I could easily see using mag-lev. But an Island
III? Old track based trains are just as good.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> I think that the partial pressure would have to be greater than that
> experienced in the habitat. This would insure that the inert atmosphere
> flooding into a fire situation would displace the existing atmosphere. I
don't
> have more specifics on the technology. Do you think it is a valid concept?
> Could it be implementable? No city on earth has a municipal fire-supression
> pipeline network, but a habitat's requirements will be different, and fire
> will probably more of a threat. Besides, we're designing from the ground up.
> Could it work?

It would probably be hard to force the atmosphere out so that the lower partial
pressure of Oxygen atmosphere could put it out. I'd personally suggest that we
forget about the idea of replacing atmosphere to fight fire since it probably
isn't feasible.

Something else will be needed. Halon could work but there are other substances
that would do the job as well.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> Also, why would we use bitumen? I'm not against it, but just because it's
done
> on earth, doesn't mean it has to be done that way at L5. Could be cement,
> crushed rock, mooncrete, etc.

We could use other things to make the road out of.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> I on the other hand have been assigned the task by the same manager to
prepare
> the brief for how to implement the mag-lev concept and to insure it be
> comparably convenient for the citizen as your car brief must be. I breath an
> inner sigh of relief, because I think I'll have an easier time making my case
> on the facts than you will. :)

I'll argue to have both of them together :p

Although I might use old track based rail instead of mag-lev. Putting
everything on the same gauge and using the same method of transfering power
(maybe something induction based since I don't want any to get a shock around
the trains, although you shouldn't play around train tracks anyway). I might
acutually put some of the train tracks above ground so as to give the
passengers a view outside, particulary if it's an island 3 habitat. Of course
all the crossings will be bridges.

panamabob Wrote:
> How about nitrogen? generally its a heavier gas and would have a tendency to
> lie close to the ground, where most fires are based. A quick blast of
> nitrogen would squelch the fire poste haste. Most people can survive a
> minute or two without air, a fire is immidiately sufficated ; no length of
> time required at all. Electrical, or whatever is killed. Of course ground
> fault interiupters would diffuse the origin in most cases.

Nope. Nitrogen is not a heavier gas then air. Of the two main gases air is
made of (N and O) nitrogen is acually the lighter one. But that won't really
matter in the atmosphere as they'll be evenly mixed at all heights. Extra
Nitrogen probably won't force the Oxygen out. Carbon Dioxide is about the only
common gas that's actually of any use in fire fighting.

panamabob Wrote:
> Then we need to think this out again and not take along our "baggage". Lights
> would all be fibre optic, either from a central light source or from
> "outdoors" focused in side. No light bulbs, elimantes most electrical wiring,
> no heat generated, nothing to knock over or bulbs to burn out either :-)

I would be more inclined to expect electric lights to be used then fibre optic
lights from a central light source. Incandesent lights I'd rather not see used
since they don't last long and aren't very efficent but flouresent lights are a
different matter. As for the wiring you'll still have the wiring for the
appliances to deal with. As long as the wiring is insulated well you really
can't expect any problems from it (could require inspection every so often if
you're really worried about it).

panamabob Wrote:
> TV and other entertainment screens will probably be projected hollogram 3-d
> by then anyway as well.

LEP seems more likely to be me then holograms. We should have that perfected
and replacing CRTs and LCDs by the time we build a habitat.

victoriatangoman Wrote:
> How about a meteor busting through? That would entail both interior and
> exterior repair work. Electrical conduits, sewer mains busting, water pipes
> rupturing, etc. A landslide on one of our engineered hills where the dirt
> didn't adhere to the substructure. A mag-lev derailment. How's that for
> starters on why you'd still need heavy equipment after the habitat was built.

I woudln't expect to have to worry about a rock busting through. There
probably won't be one hitting the habitat for thousands (millions?) of years
that could actually do damage.

Also please note that something is only called a meteor while it's in earth's atmosphere.

> Nope. Nitrogen is not a heavier gas then air.

Curious, wonder why its used in packaging to evacuate air in preservation?

> I would be more inclined to expect electric lights to be used then fibre
optic
> lights

And why would this be? one central light source is one power consumer,
multiple light soures seems redunant...
Fibre Optic lighting eliminates infra red (heat generation) and UV (fading
of materials / dyes, breaks down some materials and tires the eyes)
Fibre optics channeling in sunlight from outside provides balanced lights,
again without IR and UV. No light bulbs, even longer lasting gas type rather
than filament, is just one more thing to produce and store up somewhere

> LEP seems more likely to be me then holograms.

Plasma screens are perhaps better than CRTs, but who would pass up 3d
instead? 3 dimensions of information rather than single flat view.
Even now, folks enjoy 3d virtual googles. Because of the psycological
limiting space of a space station, regardless of size (other than that off
another Earth :-) I would guess that people would look for any subtle ways
of cheating limiting dimensions.
>

>only a meteor inside Earths atmosphere

I think that slip was actually prophetic, a rock passing through the
atmosphere of the living area of humans should probably be called a meteor
as well.

:-)

I keep thinking of the snip " 50% of jobs 10 years from now have not been
created yet" How will that deal with a project that is a best 20 years
away?

Lot's of area leads to lots of people, lots of people leads to lots of
cars.

On Monday, July 8, 2002, at 04:00 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

>> I don't understand your point. How does the theoretical potential
>> land area that could be produced pertain to the question [of how many
>> cars there will be on orbital colonies].

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html