So let's say we're dealing with an Island 1 population of 10,000.

Do you think that the incidences, means of coping or social norms
associated with love affairs, divorces, feuds, infidelity,
alcoholism, drug use, promiscuity, etc will change.

There will be confining dynamics at work that we don't face on Earth.

1.) There is no other town to move to as a means of coping.
2.) The "city" isn't so large that you'll never see the other person.
3.) The gossip factor will probably be equivalent to light speed.

So if the easy routes to coping are removed, then coping becomes
more difficult, or more "adult."

Could a response be the development of social norms, perhaps like
those found in Japan, where they had to deal with overcrowding, thin
walls, etc and developed a public face that didn't acknowledge
private matters.

Could another response be more timidity in human affairs for fear of
roiling the waters?

I know these characteristics are human traits and they occur
everywhere but if your wife takes up with your best friend, on Earth
if it becomes too much to bear you can always move to another city.
What'll you do isolated on a 10,000 person oasis 250,000 miles from
Earth?

Could this lead to more violence, homicide, suicide?

Any inputs on possible new social dynamics?

TangoMan

I don't think the situation is that much different
from living in a rural community. for thousands of
years we had these communities of around 10k and
survived okay. All those things you mentioned
happened and life still went on for the community at
large.

If anything, I would say a stronger sense of community
will come out of colonies that are smaller as each
person is more important.

Ryan

--- victoriatangoman wrote:

--- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:

> So let's say we're dealing with an Island 1 population of 10,000.

OK. For about two ~ four years.

> Do you think that the incidences, means of coping or social norms
> associated with love affairs, divorces, feuds, infidelity,
> alcoholism, drug use, promiscuity, etc will change.

Well, how was this dealt with in earlier frontier towns?

> There will be confining dynamics at work that we don't face on
> Earth.
>
> 1.) There is no other town to move to as a means of coping.

Not for the first two ~ four years, at least. Or rather at most.

> 2.) The "city" isn't so large that you'll never see the other
> person.

OK. This takes us back to Walnut Grove, from _Little House on the
Prairie_ fame.

> 3.) The gossip factor will probably be equivalent to light speed.

Agreed. Even in Little House days, this seemed true. Throw in
telephone, e-mail, and faster transportation and (probably) higher
population density than Walnut Grove, and gossip will be rapid indeed.

> So if the easy routes to coping are removed, then coping becomes
> more difficult, or more "adult."
>
> Could a response be the development of social norms, perhaps like
> those found in Japan, where they had to deal with overcrowding,
> thin walls, etc and developed a public face that didn't acknowledge
> private matters.

Quite possibly. Isaac Asimove considered this in his novel _The
Caves of Steel_. OTOH, Larry Niven proposed in _A World Out of Time_
cultures that simply gave up on all notions of privacy. OTOH (EEP! I
have three hands!!), I don't think that you get much cultural
evolution in less than five years, which is as long as this "Wlanut
Grove" situation is going to last.

> Could another response be more timidity in human affairs for fear
> of roiling the waters?

This is likely, as it can be adopted much faster on an idividual
level than can full scale cultural evolution.

> I know these characteristics are human traits and they occur
> everywhere but if your wife takes up with your best friend, on
> Earth if it becomes too much to bear you can always move to another
> city.
> What'll you do isolated on a 10,000 person oasis 250,000 miles from
> Earth?

Grit your teeth and feel awful for two ~ four years, and then move to
the other Habitat. Unless they do, of course.

> Could this lead to more violence, homicide, suicide?

More? Nah; that happens here a lot as it is.

> Any inputs on possible new social dynamics?

Well, I hate sond like, well, me, but...

The replication time for Habitats is two ~ four years. So any
scenario that assumes "one Habitat and no more" is an interesting
thought experiment at most. It has little or no bearing on reality.
Which doesn't mean that your questions should be ignored, or that
they aren't interesting, or that they do not have a real bearing on
future Habitat life, only that they have to be considered in the
light of an expanding population, both Habitats and of the people who
live inside them.

Xenophile (who bets you already knew this ;)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:

> The replication time for Habitats is two ~ four years. So any
> scenario that assumes "one Habitat and no more" is an interesting
> thought experiment at most. It has little or no bearing on
reality.

It's not reality yet. I'm waiting eagerly though.

> Which doesn't mean that your questions should be ignored, or that
> they aren't interesting, or that they do not have a real bearing
on
> future Habitat life, only that they have to be considered in the
> light of an expanding population, both Habitats and of the people
who
> live inside them.
>
> Xenophile (who bets you already knew this ;)

Yes, I did know this, but while the theory is that Habitat
replication could take only a few years, there still has to be a
call for it and a way to finance it.

So it's not necessarily a given that you'll have this out. I could
make a plausible case that the first Habitat will be the only one
for a decade or more. Look to NASA for plans that go askew. Look to
Iridium for market forces undercutting ambition. Look to advancing
automation for reductions in personnel requirements.

Maybe you only need 10,000 people to build your SPS or perform other
orbital commerce.

I'm looking to human nature to continue in orbit as it does on
Earth. These personal trevails will occur but the participants won't
have the same escape options.

Ryan, in the past, in those small towns, you could always pick up
stakes and find someplace else to go if it was important, or
humiliating or painful, enough. Maybe a ticket back to Earth isn't
so cheap, or even possible if you're on a work contract of defined
term.

I tend to think that even with electronic communication and media,
that 250,000 miles of distance will create an isolating effect and
small communities will add unique societal stresses that we haven't
seen before.

Granted, in the past some people dealt with the issue and stayed in
the same small Walnut Grove, but some people who couldn't take it
had to pick up stakes and move. Some people in the Habitat will stay
and cope, but for the ones who can't, what are they to do? What is
their pressure release valve?

TangoMan

Tangoman wrote:

>Granted, in the past some people dealt with the issue and stayed in
>the same small Walnut Grove, but some people who couldn't take it
>had to pick up stakes and move. Some people in the Habitat will stay
>and cope, but for the ones who can't, what are they to do? What is
>their pressure release valve?

Well, if the suggestion is another habitat every 2-4 years, then I'd guess
it's work, and lots of it. :-)

I don't think you can see any first habitat community as small town
Anywhere. It's a frontier, with risks, with a purpose (experimental and
constructional) and not a mere "settlement" as we see towns.

If it's funded by government or multinationals then it's effectively a
colony, focussed on a job, with entry dependent on any number of factors.
Perhaps accommodation will be based on terms of service - here's your flat
for two years before returning to Earth...maybe (initially) that's
essential - a psychological escape route from a building site where the
risk of death or failure is ever-present.

Andy G

> From: Xenophile [mailto:xenophile2002@...]

> > So let's say we're dealing with an Island 1 population of 10,000.

Plus a population of 5-10 billion on Earth and at least a hundred on the moon. (Where 'moon' can be substituted for any source of raw material.) Plus various other needed stations located around Earth/Luna orbit. If you *really* want to move, or the colony really wants to get rid of you, there are plenty of places to go. Even if this wasn't true, a colony that can replicate itself in 4 years is going to have no problem building Mir sized 'prison cells' and attaching them to the outside. No doubt many criminals would sing a different tune after a month or six in solitary confinement at 1.5G and eating nothing but horrible 20th centuary space food!

And even if they couldn't be bothered, such a colony can move MILLIONS OF TONS of material around at will! ;) Sending peopel elsewhere is going to be easy.

ANTIcarrot.

On Wednesday 01 October 2003 01:43, victoriatangoman wrote:
(...)
> Yes, I did know this, but while the theory is that Habitat
> replication could take only a few years, there still has to be a
> call for it and a way to finance it.

This replication rate of a few years is a technical number, I think. The real
rate of replication will be determined by population growth (and that comes
to immigration in the beginning of colonization).

Population growth to new frontiers can be *very* quick. For instance, my city,
Belo Horizonte, was planned and opened at the end of the XIX century, and in
the first years population growth was at 50%/year, and if the high frontier
grows that quick a replication rate of 2 to 4 year would be needed.

*However*, I don't think that the High Frontier will grow that quick. There
are two factors bottlenecking growth:

- Transportation: even if you have a Edwards-style space elevator pumping
colonists into orbit, you'll be able to put, say, 1,000 people/year in space.
(Cargo for each elevator car: 20 tonnes. Assuming 1 ton per person - life
support, shielding, etc - 20 people per ride, about 50 rides per year.) Ten
years to fill an Island One. Of course, if there are major economic forces
pushing emigration to space, then you may have more elevators/BDBs/space
planes or any other kind of space mass transportation system that comes to
reality.

- Monolithic Building: on Earth, a city can grow incrementally. You already
have a ground where you can build things, and you just need to add houses,
stores, factories, etc., as needed. In space, you need to first build not
only the "ground" (the inner surface of your colony), but also your
atmosphere and your shielding. That's a major investment, and I think that
construction of a colony will be comparable to the construction of a planned
city. And through history we can see that planned cities (Washington,
Braslia, Belo Horizonte, etc) are neither frequent nor cheap, and so my gut
feeling is that building a new space colony will be a major economic effort
and the replication rate will be decades instead of years. That would hold
even for the "matrix" idea that I exposed recently.

... Unless we adhere to zero-g colonies, which would be incrementally
expansible at will, like an Earth-based city.

(...)
> TangoMan
(...)

Lucio

On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 06:48 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> There will be confining dynamics at work that we don't face on Earth.
>
> 1.) There is no other town to move to as a means of coping.

You can move to another colony.

> 2.) The "city" isn't so large that you'll never see the other person.

I live in Capitola, CA, population 10,000. You do see people
occassionally, but not as often as you'd think.

> 3.) The gossip factor will probably be equivalent to light speed.

It's important to note that until the last couple of thousand years
people lived in groups probably not exceeding a few hundred. Even
large cities a few hundred years ago were only a few tens of thousands
(I think, anyone know?). Living in cities of millions of people is a
very new thing for humanity.

>

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 09:43 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> Ryan, in the past, in those small towns, you could always pick up
> stakes and find someplace else to go if it was important, or
> humiliating or painful, enough. Maybe a ticket back to Earth isn't
> so cheap, or even possible if you're on a work contract of defined
> term.
>

This was true in the US, but not in much of the world. In Europe, for
example, serfs were tied to the land and not allowed to move.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 06:48 PM, victoriatangoman
>
> > There will be confining dynamics at work that we don't face on
Earth.
> >
> > 1.) There is no other town to move to as a means of coping.
>
> You can move to another colony.
>
> > 2.) The "city" isn't so large that you'll never see the other
person.
>
> I live in Capitola, CA, population 10,000. You do see people
> occassionally, but not as often as you'd think.

Does everyone in your town have a commute of 10 minutes? Do you work
with your neighbors? Do you socialize only with people from the
town? Do you do all of your shopping in the town? Does nobody in
your town commute out of it? Do all of the children go to the same
school? Do you go to any cultural activities outside of your town?

I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to work,
with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl, is the
safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact with
only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.

I don't think the first Habitat will have the options of commuting
to work or socializing with people who are 250,000 miles away.

TangoMan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:

> - Monolithic Building: on Earth, a city can grow incrementally.
You already
> have a ground where you can build things, and you just need to add
houses,
> stores, factories, etc., as needed. In space, you need to first
build not
> only the "ground" (the inner surface of your colony), but also
your
> atmosphere and your shielding.

And life support system such as the eco-torus, the water
distribution system, the sewers, the whole power generation and
distribution system, the waste management system, the agricultural
system and all this before one person can live in the Habitat.

That's a major investment, and I think that
> construction of a colony will be comparable to the construction of
a planned
> city. And through history we can see that planned cities
(Washington,
> Braslia, Belo Horizonte, etc) are neither frequent nor cheap, and
so my gut
> feeling is that building a new space colony will be a major
economic effort
> and the replication rate will be decades instead of years. That
would hold
> even for the "matrix" idea that I exposed recently.

I agree. Also, can a Habitat be built with no interior buildings and
then have them added later? What would that do to the Habitat
rotation and load balancing? Do you have to build equally around the
Habitat in order not to have too much mass on one side of the
Habitat? If so, then your city can't grow organically, it'll have to
grow in a planned progression.

Perhaps the interior buildings will have to be built before anyone
moves in.

TangoMan

On Wednesday 01 October 2003 14:15, Al Globus wrote:
(...)
> It's important to note that until the last couple of thousand years
> people lived in groups probably not exceeding a few hundred. Even
> large cities a few hundred years ago were only a few tens of thousands
> (I think, anyone know?). Living in cities of millions of people is a
> very new thing for humanity.
(...)

Uh... There were some kind of *large* cities (hundreds of thousands) even in
before-Christ times. See this page:
http://geography.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm .

Lucio Coelho

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:
> On Wednesday 01 October 2003 14:15, Al Globus wrote:
> (...)
> > It's important to note that until the last couple of thousand
years
> > people lived in groups probably not exceeding a few hundred.
Even
> > large cities a few hundred years ago were only a few tens of
thousands
> > (I think, anyone know?). Living in cities of millions of people
is a
> > very new thing for humanity.
> (...)
>
> Uh... There were some kind of *large* cities (hundreds of
thousands) even in
> before-Christ times. See this page:
> http://geography.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm .
>
> Lucio Coelho

Thanks for the link.

Apart from this discussion, it was interesting reading just by
itself.

TangoMan

On Wednesday 01 October 2003 15:55, victoriatangoman wrote:
(...)
> I agree. Also, can a Habitat be built with no interior buildings and
> then have them added later? What would that do to the Habitat
> rotation and load balancing? Do you have to build equally around the
> Habitat in order not to have too much mass on one side of the
> Habitat? If so, then your city can't grow organically, it'll have to
> grow in a planned progression.
>
> Perhaps the interior buildings will have to be built before anyone
> moves in.

I mumbled about this some time ago and the conclusions that I reached were:

1) If the total mass of buildings is negligible compared, for instance, to
shielding, then you can grow your city organically. Here "negligible" means:
the amount of wobble produced by an uneven distribution of buildings would
have to be neither noticeable by people nor stressfull to the structure. That
is, it would need calculation and the establishment of limits to construction
in each habitat.
Interestingly, in country-sized habitats (yes, they are possible in
theory), that would allow an uneven distribution of mountains and inland
seas.
2) Another alternative is to provide an active "load balance" mechanism for
your habitat. One that I imagined was:
- Put a lot of non-connected lakes along the inner surface of the habitat.
- Monitor the wobble of the habitat with sensors (accelerometers, gyros,
whatever).
- Pump water from one lake to the other in order to cancel wobble.

> TangoMan
(...)

Lucio

Hi there!

>Even
>large cities a few hundred years ago were only a few tens of thousands
>(I think, anyone know?).

No...well above...the population of London in 1300 was almost certainly
above 80 000, Byzantium and Rome /may/ have reached nearly a million a
thousand years earlier.

Don't ever underestimate the abilities of pre-industrial human cultures. ;-)

Andy G

http://www.bumply.com/Medieval/

> From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@...]

> Does everyone in your town have a commute of 10 minutes? Do you work
> with your neighbors? Do you socialize only with people from the
> town? Do you do all of your shopping in the town? Does nobody in
> your town commute out of it? Do all of the children go to the same
> school? Do you go to any cultural activities outside of your town?

Does everyone in your town use the same street? Even on a small colony there are going to be lots of places to go and not everyone will go to all of them. No, I work in exterior maintinance. My neighbor works in hydroponics and administration respectively. Actually I do most of my shopping on-line for non-material goods. If every in a colony brought a 1m shelf and books to fill it the total would add up to 500 tons. Aside from food, buying 'things' is largely impractical. Schools? Oh, you mean the collective education farms? Oh, no-one's used those in ages...

> I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to work,
> with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl, is the
> safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact with
> only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.

Because of course this colony would not have any telephones or internet access would it? Or zero-gravity sports? Or television? Presumably everyone in it also comes from exactly the same culture and shares the same beliefs and values you do?
And I imagine that intereacting with all of those 10,000 people every day must get rather monotonous, not to mention tiring.

> I don't think the first Habitat will have the options of commuting
> to work or socializing with people who are 250,000 miles away.

I disagree about the last. A second's delay would be barely noticable on phone lines, and would make interactive gaming impractical, but wouldn't affect other forms of interaction - like the one we are currently using now.

ANTIcarrot.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
> > From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@h...]
>
> > Does everyone in your town have a commute of 10 minutes? Do you
work
> > with your neighbors? Do you socialize only with people from the
> > town? Do you do all of your shopping in the town? Does nobody in
> > your town commute out of it? Do all of the children go to the
same
> > school? Do you go to any cultural activities outside of your
town?
>
> Does everyone in your town use the same street? Even on a small
colony there are going to be lots of places to go and not everyone
will go to all of them. No, I work in exterior maintinance. My
neighbor works in hydroponics and administration respectively.
Actually I do most of my shopping on-line for non-material goods. If
every in a colony brought a 1m shelf and books to fill it the total
would add up to 500 tons. Aside from food, buying 'things' is
largely impractical. Schools? Oh, you mean the collective education
farms? Oh, no-one's used those in ages...

Let me be more explicit in my point because I think you missed it
entirely.

For those high pressure personal scenarios that size of community or
distance away may solve, a small Habitat may become a pressure
cooker. Al Globus responded that he lives in a small town and these
dynamics aren't at work. I questioned whether his small town
experience is really limited to the small town, or does he have
access to the environs of a larger community.

On Earth, you may live in a small town of 10,000 people, but if your
little hamlet is 50 miles outside of NYC, then NYC is available to
you as a resource. People can work there, socialize there, shop
there, etc. Your life isn't confined to the environs of the town.
You have options available to you.

That isn't available to you at L5.

Now tell me the point of your response, because I missed how a book
shelf, books, 500 tons of total books, buying things,
and "collective education farms" support a coherent point. What is
it that you're trying to say?

>
> > I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to
work,
> > with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl, is
the
> > safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact
with
> > only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.
>
> Because of course this colony would not have any telephones or
internet access would it? Or zero-gravity sports? Or television?
Presumably everyone in it also comes from exactly the same culture
and shares the same beliefs and values you do?
> And I imagine that intereacting with all of those 10,000 people
every day must get rather monotonous, not to mention tiring.

Your attempt at sarcasm isn't working very well.

> > I don't think the first Habitat will have the options of
commuting
> > to work or socializing with people who are 250,000 miles away.
>
> I disagree about the last. A second's delay would be barely
noticable on phone lines, and would make interactive gaming
impractical, but wouldn't affect other forms of interaction - like
the one we are currently using now.
>
> ANTIcarrot.

There is more to socializing than playing an online game or
participating in a discussion forum. It's nice to actually be with
people, to get away from "shop talk", to go to concerts, plays,
movies.

On Earth, even if you live in a small town, all of the features of
big cities are available to you.

If, in your small town, your wife takes up with your best friend,
you make a complete ass of yourself when you're drunk, you have a
feud with your neighbor, coworker, boss, or some other disaster or
embarassment falls upon you, you can spend a lot of your time away
from the town until things cool down, or actually move. These
options aren't available to you at L5.

Some people handle these issues better than others. They're not the
ones I'm curious about. Some guy may have no problem with his
cheating wife living across the street from him with his former best
friend, and seeing them every day. Other guys may go ballistic at
the sight of them every day. It's the latter situation that I'm
pondering.

My post has nothing to do with day to day life where everything is
hunky-dory and you can interact with your amiable neighbors and
coworkers and you're mostly satisfied with the lifestyle and range
of entertainment available to you.

My post was addressing what happens when things go wrong in the
personal relationships of people. This is usually what drives people
nutso. I don't hear too many instances of violence stemming from a
disagreement on whether the transfer shuttle should be solar ion, or
mass driver, propelled. I read about violence stemming from personal
relationships, jilted lovers, anger at not being promoted, drunken
brawls, etc.

You seem to be saying that if a person on the Habitat wants to avoid
people he should lock himself into his house and play video games,
watch DVD movies, or log onto the internet. This seems to me to be a
move in an antisocial direction and I'm not sure that such isolation
is the best medicine for the sour mood the person is in. On Earth,
they could always seek solice away from the environment that caused
them grief.

Any psychologists on this list want to offer an opinion?

TangoMan

> From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@...]

> Let me be more explicit in my point because I think you missed it
> entirely.
>
> For those high pressure personal scenarios that size of community or
> distance away may solve, a small Habitat may become a pressure
> cooker. Al Globus responded that he lives in a small town and these
> dynamics aren't at work. I questioned whether his small town
> experience is really limited to the small town, or does he have
> access to the environs of a larger community.
>
> On Earth, you may live in a small town of 10,000 people, but if your
> little hamlet is 50 miles outside of NYC, then NYC is available to
> you as a resource. People can work there, socialize there, shop
> there, etc. Your life isn't confined to the environs of the town.
> You have options available to you.

You're saying a small colony would be viewed as a prison by those who lived there, as they would not be able to leave.

> That isn't available to you at L5.

On Earth there are these little things called 'islands', and some of them contain a hell of a lot less than 10,000 people. They seem to survive quite happily with little contact with the outside world.

> Now tell me the point of your response, because I missed how a book
> shelf, books, 500 tons of total books, buying things,
> and "collective education farms" support a coherent point. What is
> it that you're trying to say?

1) Your assumptions are based on life on Earth, and are notappropiet to an orbital colony.
2) That the colony would *never* be completely isolated from the outside world.
3) The colony would not be a completely static enviroment.

An Island 1 colony is going to weight... say ten million tons? Most of that conctere, steel and glass. What little remains would be the biomass and machinery needed to sustain the colony. There simply would not be enough mass left inside the colony to produce marketable goods. If you import the colony is going to gain weight quickly. Introducing all that exotic material into the colony is also going to play havoc with life-support due to toxin build up. Therefore actual goods are likely to be expensive, and shopping in the conventional sense is unlikely to happen, except for special occasions. This was made in response to your question, 'Do you do all your shopping in your home town?' I believe the question shows poor understanding of colony dynamics on your part.

Seeing as people are talking about building colonies in 4 years these people do not have problems with moving large ammounts of material from the moon to L5. If rock is easy to move, people must be even easier. If peopel are to colonise these places it *must* be relatively easy. You ask how would people live if there was nowhere else for them to go? But surely if they can be sent there they can also leave? Commuting would not be possible, but weekend trips to resorts on the moon would be. Or summer holidays on Earth.

The colony superstructure is going to be fixed. Arcitecture inside is going to be regulated to keep the colony balanced. However at each end there is zero gravity, and additional construction on the outside can be done easily and cheeply in a way that would not impact severely on the colony. If you want an escape resort and can't afford to leave the colony, build a small ring station (100m diameter?) in the 0G section and sell high prices.

>
> > > I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to
> work,
> > > with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl, is
> the
> > > safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact
> with
> > > only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.
> >
> > Because of course this colony would not have any telephones or
> internet access would it? Or zero-gravity sports? Or television?
> Presumably everyone in it also comes from exactly the same culture
> and shares the same beliefs and values you do?
> > And I imagine that intereacting with all of those 10,000 people
> every day must get rather monotonous, not to mention tiring.
>
> Your attempt at sarcasm isn't working very well.

Yet you sem to assume the complete lack of telecommunications, and that even if they existed they would have no significant benifit to colony society. Perhaps you feel peopel would not accept them as substitutes for 'the real thing'? Personally I assume such people would not be the first choice for admitance to the colony.

> There is more to socializing than playing an online game or
> participating in a discussion forum. It's nice to actually be with
> people, to get away from "shop talk", to go to concerts, plays,
> movies.

If I want to go the the local Cineworld, I go there at a whim. If I want to go to the Sydney Opera House, I spend a year or more saving money. Te ame distinction will be made by colonists. They will make the best use they can of the local facilities, and if they really want more they'll plan holidays or move.

> On Earth, even if you live in a small town, all of the features of
> big cities are available to you.

And exactly what facilities do you think will not be available even on a small colony, considdering what they can fit on a (much smaller) cruise ship? You may be limited to one cinema multiplex and one concert hall, but that need not limit the range of tallents, acts, or performers.

> If, in your small town, your wife takes up with your best friend,
> you make a complete ass of yourself when you're drunk, you have a
> feud with your neighbor, coworker, boss, or some other disaster or
> embarassment falls upon you, you can spend a lot of your time away
> from the town until things cool down, or actually move. These
> options aren't available to you at L5.

If you make an ass of yourself at work (and many do) you can't just move away either. At least not unless you have huge piles of money lying about. Then again if you have that much money... And I disagree with you about the last sentence.

And based on the pictures I've seen, if you want to get away just get a job in on of the exterior farm habitats. Maybe overseeing the automated machinery? Might be boring, but you would have 'gotten away'.

> Some people handle these issues better than others. They're not the
> ones I'm curious about. Some guy may have no problem with his
> cheating wife living across the street from him with his former best
> friend, and seeing them every day. Other guys may go ballistic at
> the sight of them every day. It's the latter situation that I'm
> pondering.

I imagine there would be a screening process involved in applicants for the colony.

> My post was addressing what happens when things go wrong in the
> personal relationships of people. This is usually what drives people
> nutso.

They leave or get chucked out or are given a Darwin Award or put into solitary on the outside. Alternatively the cheeting slut and her lover (for exampled) might be expelled as a fairer result than punishing the victim.

> You seem to be saying that if a person on the Habitat wants to avoid
> people he should lock himself into his house and play video games,
> watch DVD movies, or log onto the internet.

That was in answer to your implication that people could not interact with others outside the colony. In practice, any single colonist is only going to know a hundred others or so and in a population of 10,000 there's plenty of opertunities to get away from the people you want to avoid, and meet new people.

ANTIcarrot.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
> > From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@h...]
>
> > Let me be more explicit in my point because I think you missed
it
> > entirely.
> >
> > For those high pressure personal scenarios that size of
community or
> > distance away may solve, a small Habitat may become a pressure
> > cooker. Al Globus responded that he lives in a small town and
these
> > dynamics aren't at work. I questioned whether his small town
> > experience is really limited to the small town, or does he have
> > access to the environs of a larger community.
> >
> > On Earth, you may live in a small town of 10,000 people, but if
your
> > little hamlet is 50 miles outside of NYC, then NYC is available
to
> > you as a resource. People can work there, socialize there, shop
> > there, etc. Your life isn't confined to the environs of the
town.
> > You have options available to you.
>
> You're saying a small colony would be viewed as a prison by those
> who lived there, as they would not be able to leave.

I'm talking about the first Habitat. It may take a while until the
next Habitat gets built.

I'm also assuming that you can't just pack up, buy a ticket to Earth
for $500 and split.

You're probably there under contract for a period of time because it
is expensive to transport you there.

So, in a sense, if you feel trapped then you could see it as a
prison. If things are going swimmingly, then that thought doesn't
enter your mind.

>
> > That isn't available to you at L5.
>
> On Earth there are these little things called 'islands', and some
> of them contain a hell of a lot less than 10,000 people. They seem
> to survive quite happily with little contact with the outside
> world.

Look here for some psychological (Solipsism Syndrome and
Shimanagashi Syndrome) problems that are anticpated to occur in the
Habitats:

http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/75SummerStudy/3appendA.h
tml

A short exerpt:

BEGIN QUOTE
During the feudal period in Japan, political offenders were often
sent away and confined in small islands. This form of punishment was
called "shimanagashi." In many American prisons today, there
are "isolation units" and "segregation units" where inmates whom the
prison authorities consider as "troublemakers" are confined for a
length of time.

To a smaller degree, the "mainlanders" who spend a few years on an
isolated island, even though the island may have large cities and
modern conveniences, feel a strange sense of isolation. They begin
to feel left out and intellectually crippled, even though physically
life may be very comfortable. People suffer from the shimanagashi
syndrome unless they were born on the island or have lived there a
long time. For many people, life in Alaska has more challenge and
excitement than life on a remote island. Often daily life in Alaska
seems to consist of emergencies, which test resourcefulness and
ability to cooperate with other individuals.
END QUOTE

> > Now tell me the point of your response, because I missed how a
book
> > shelf, books, 500 tons of total books, buying things,
> > and "collective education farms" support a coherent point. What
is
> > it that you're trying to say?
>
> 1) Your assumptions are based on life on Earth, and are
notappropiet to an orbital colony.
> 2) That the colony would *never* be completely isolated from the
outside world.
> 3) The colony would not be a completely static enviroment.

I agree that it wouldn't be completely isolated from the outside
world, but the option of leaving a Habitat may not be as easy as
leaving a situation on Earth.

> An Island 1 colony is going to weight... say ten million tons?
> Most of that conctere, steel and glass. What little remains would
> be the biomass and machinery needed to sustain the colony. There
> simply would not be enough mass left inside the colony to produce
> marketable goods.

I'd assume that the mass to make goods would come from outside the
Habitat from the same source as the material used to build the
Habitat.

> If you import the colony is going to gain weight quickly.

I'm assuming that the engineering would assume that people will
accumalate mass for personal use. I look to moving companies for
guidance on this. If they can pack a families possesions into a
moving van, then I think we're looking at 5 tons/person. For a
population of 10,000 that's 50,000 tons, compared to the Habitat
mass of 10,000,000 tons.

> Introducing all that exotic material into the colony is also going
to play havoc with life-support due to toxin build up.

Why exotic material? Why toxin build-up?

> Therefore actual goods are likely to be expensive, and shopping in
> the conventional sense is unlikely to happen, except for special
> occasions. This was made in response to your question, 'Do you do
> all your shopping in your home town?' I believe the question shows
> poor understanding of colony dynamics on your part.

Thanks for the lesson. I didn't realize that to understand "colony
dynamics" one had to build the understanding on unsupported
suppostions.

>
> Seeing as people are talking about building colonies in 4 years
these people do not have problems with moving large ammounts of
material from the moon to L5. If rock is easy to move, people must
be even easier.

Why? People require life-support, radiation protection, rapid
transit - rocks don't.

> If peopel are to colonise these places it *must* be relatively
easy.

A statement doesn't suffice as a conclusion.

> You ask how would people live if there was nowhere else for them
> to go? But surely if they can be sent there they can also leave?
> Commuting would not be possible, but weekend trips to resorts on
> the moon would be. Or summer holidays on Earth.

Sure they can leave, but the employer may not be accomodating. The
person may not want to jeopardize their job. They may not want to
pay a penalty to get out of a contract. There are an assortment of
reasons that someone may try to stick it out but they overestimate
their capacity to handle the stress and then they blow. My question
was whether people had any thoughts on how that stress might be
channeled. New societal norms perhaps? Greater involvement of mental
health professionals in the Habitat for just that reason? Enforced
therapy or hiatus elsewhere in the Habitat?

> > > > I tend to think that modern life, with its long commutes to
> > work,
> > > > with neighbors that are strangers, with its suburban sprawl,
is
> > the
> > > > safety valve of modern life. If you are confined to interact
> > with
> > > > only those 10,000 people your life becomes less varied.
> > >
> > > Because of course this colony would not have any telephones or
> > internet access would it? Or zero-gravity sports? Or television?
> > Presumably everyone in it also comes from exactly the same
culture
> > and shares the same beliefs and values you do?
> > > And I imagine that intereacting with all of those 10,000
people
> > every day must get rather monotonous, not to mention tiring.
> >
> > Your attempt at sarcasm isn't working very well.
>
> Yet you sem to assume the complete lack of telecommunications, and
> that even if they existed they would have no significant benifit
> to colony society.

I do no such thing. You have no grounds upon which to make such an
inference.

> Perhaps you feel peopel would not accept them as substitutes
> for 'the real thing'? Personally I assume such people would not be
> the first choice for admitance to the colony.

Psychological profiling is not an exact science. You can't always
predict how people will react to real situations by testing them or
by subjecting them to simulations of crisis. So if you can't
identify the victim of a future unforeseen crisis how are you going
to eliminate them from your candidate pool?

> > On Earth, even if you live in a small town, all of the features
of
> > big cities are available to you.
>
> And exactly what facilities do you think will not be available
even on a small colony, considdering what they can fit on a (much
smaller) cruise ship?

Strangers. Anonymity. New activities. New job opportunities.
Different groups of people that you could form new relationships
with (both romantic and platonic) in which you don't arrive with
baggage, which everyone in the Habitat may be aware of because of
rampant gossip.

> > If, in your small town, your wife takes up with your best
friend,
> > you make a complete ass of yourself when you're drunk, you have
a
> > feud with your neighbor, coworker, boss, or some other disaster
or
> > embarassment falls upon you, you can spend a lot of your time
away
> > from the town until things cool down, or actually move. These
> > options aren't available to you at L5.
>
> If you make an ass of yourself at work (and many do) you can't
just move away either.

You may be able to transfer to another office within your company.
You could quit and get another job. You could pick up stakes and
move to another city. I'm saying that in the early days of the first
Habitat that there is no other city to move to unless you go back to
Earth, and that option may be too expensive to consider. So now
you're feeling trapped. You want to find a release for your social
anxiety and your "flight reflex" isn't an option. How can we help
this person cope?

> And based on the pictures I've seen, if you want to get away just
> get a job in on of the exterior farm habitats. Maybe overseeing
the automated machinery? Might be boring, but you would have 'gotten
away'.

And what if you don't know Jack about farming or machinery? Who
would you displace? Where would they go to work?

> > Some people handle these issues better than others. They're not
the
> > ones I'm curious about. Some guy may have no problem with his
> > cheating wife living across the street from him with his former
best
> > friend, and seeing them every day. Other guys may go ballistic
at
> > the sight of them every day. It's the latter situation that I'm
> > pondering.
>
> I imagine there would be a screening process involved in
applicants for the colony.

Yeah, so do I, but as I stated above, screening isn't perfect.

TangoMan

On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 11:48 AM, victoriatangoman wrote:

>> I live in Capitola, CA, population 10,000. You do see people
>> occassionally, but not as often as you'd think.
>
> Does everyone in your town have a commute of 10 minutes? Do you work
> with your neighbors? Do you socialize only with people from the
> town? Do you do all of your shopping in the town? Does nobody in
> your town commute out of it? Do all of the children go to the same
> school? Do you go to any cultural activities outside of your town?
>

Actually, telecomuters like myself and many others spend an amazing
amount of time at home and in town. I do go for days at a time without
leaving Capitola, although I often go to neighboring towns. While I
don't like to spend entire days inside the house, I don't think leaving
Capitola on a frequent basis is critical to my quality of life. The
one thing I would really miss is that I sing with a chorus that
rehearses in the next town over. The point is, given people's long
history of living very close to home (current mobility is only a few
decades old), there is little reason to believe that living in a
largish (mile or so across, 10,000ish people) orbital colony is
fundamentally difficult for people, although it may be quite different
than the American life-style of the last few decades.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 11:55 AM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> I agree. Also, can a Habitat be built with no interior buildings and
> then have them added later? What would that do to the Habitat
> rotation and load balancing?

A good analysis of dynamic rotation control has yet to be done. That
said, there may be issues. People and mass will be constantly moving
around within a colony. Whether this is enough to require some sort of
active rotation control to avoid wobbling is unknown, as far as I know.
It may depend on whether you rotate the shielding or not. If the
shielding rotates, the mass of the rotating system is much larger and
active control should be less necessary.
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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 12:13 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho

> On Wednesday 01 October 2003 14:15, Al Globus wrote:
> (...)
>> It's important to note that until the last couple of thousand years
>> people lived in groups probably not exceeding a few hundred. Even
>> large cities a few hundred years ago were only a few tens of thousands
>> (I think, anyone know?). Living in cities of millions of people is a
>> very new thing for humanity.
> (...)
>
> Uh... There were some kind of *large* cities (hundreds of thousands)
> even in
> before-Christ times. See this page:
> http://geography.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm .

Looks like the biggest cities were in the hundreds of thousands, or
even around a million. Of course, during these times the vast majority
of people lived in much small groups.

>
> Lucio Coelho
>
> Canada.
>

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

Okey, I've read quite a bit of this thread so here I go and jump in.

A city of 10 000 people is not "small". It is possible to live in such
a city and never meet more than 10% of the population. The Walnut
Grove analogy is wrong, Walnut Grove was at most 200 people.

The better analogy is Yellowknife in Canadian Northwest territories:
leaving implies moving a minimum 1000 km in any direction, one can't
commute to Edmonton to work, in fact almost everyone works for one
company. The opera is 4000 km away.

More to the point. Yellowknife is big enough to allow a vibrant social
life, a school system, and some cultural activities. Also phones,
television and the internet are available. Such towns have very high
acceptance of the internet (80% or more) because it allows to
commuincate with people from around the world. A space colony wouldn't
be far enough to make a difference to internet delays.

The real question that you have been implying but no one wanted to say
is will the space colony feel like a prison.

My belief is that it can if it is not designed correctly. Its not the
number of people on the colony, its the attitude of the people and the
authorities that will make it feel this way. For example most
companies have policies against employees dating. If this kind of
policy is in force in the colony you will get a miserable place to work.

Bill

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:

Perhaps your best analogies would be 'colonies" here on earth... such as military bases or Oil company compounds.

Within these you have the basics of "life" but artificially so. The population base may not normally support a movie theater, some of the stores or the selection of goods.

Unless you look to the outside, your grouping of friends and acquaintences is relatively small. You DO look forward to once a year "vacations" back stateside. Through satellite TV you can follow sports, popular culture events etc. (although perhaps out of sync because game may be on at 3 am your local time, not 3 in the afternoon)

The challenges you speak of, adultry, etc. DO have reprocussions and susually the response is to get shipped out. Rarely do you have a choice in the matter once the incident becomes public. Higher ups will do the transfer out of course to maintain staus quo in the community.

Another good example would have been the old Canal Zone. A semi sustainable colony of americans in the tropic; americas experiment with socialism. Housing, schools, entertainment, shopping were all provided for to try and make living as comfortable as possible. At one time total population reached the 50,000 women children and men. The colony that was 50 miles long and 10 miles wide was broken up into a little more than a dozen townships, each with its own commissarie, school, clubhouse /cafeteria, post office, churches. To service the whole of the colony, dairies and vegetable gardens were included, as well as light manufacturing for furniture, a laboratory to formulate sundries, and even laundries. Several colony ships regularly brought in items from the USA, and also doubled as transports to provide colonist a way back to the USA, for a once a year vacation.

Children ran free, always under some adults watchful eye. The grapevine communication system let parents know where their kids were, what trouble they had gotten into before the kids could even make it home. :-) Never had a chance. haha.

Some indiscretions were overlooked, unless they became obvious, and then shipping out was the remedy. Hardly a remedy at all actually.

The work was organized into divisions... and one pretty much knew everyone within their division. Examples being the school division, supply division, marine division, etc. There was some overlap when a spouse also worked. There was several methods of making social friends...either through your church circle, civic association, sports, or other non working activities. Life was actually not TOO different from life in middle america, and it was structured as such.

People married, had kids. Sometimes some younger people would leave for a few years for college, and then re appear for jobs in the colony. For many it was home. 3rd and 4th generation people.

I'm back!

>
> Sure they can leave, but the employer may not be accomodating. The
> person may not want to jeopardize their job. They may not want to
> pay a penalty to get out of a contract. There are an assortment of
> reasons that someone may try to stick it out but they overestimate
> their capacity to handle the stress and then they blow. My question
> was whether people had any thoughts on how that stress might be
> channeled. New societal norms perhaps? Greater involvement of mental
> health professionals in the Habitat for just that reason? Enforced
> therapy or hiatus elsewhere in the Habitat?
>

If you are talking about the psychology of people I wouldn't expect
that much of a difference. The caveat I put is if the rules of the
colony are restricting in some way. If the rules in the colony are the
same as small town in Iowa, few people would notice the difference. a
city of 10000 people is bigger than most people imagine and rumours,
and gossip may spread within specific circles but not everywhere. Also
most people in small towns are always in a habit of making sure the
person who the rumours are about be the last to know.

>
> > Yet you sem to assume the complete lack of telecommunications, and
> > that even if they existed they would have no significant benifit
> > to colony society.
>
> I do no such thing. You have no grounds upon which to make such an
> inference.
>

Actually much of your arguments did imply the lack of
telecommunications. But to be absolutely honest telecommunication may
in fact be a problem anyway. The bandwidth coming in and out of the
colony is limited. Most of it would be preallocated to uses the
company that built the colony wanted it too. There is no reason to
believe that internet access, long distance telephone calls, or even
television would be available in the quantities available on earth.

>
> Psychological profiling is not an exact science. You can't always
> predict how people will react to real situations by testing them or
> by subjecting them to simulations of crisis. So if you can't
> identify the victim of a future unforeseen crisis how are you going
> to eliminate them from your candidate pool?
>

Well the crisis in questions we are talking about are the ones that
are foreseen, and presumably the pyschological profiling would screen for.

>
> Strangers. Anonymity. New activities. New job opportunities.
> Different groups of people that you could form new relationships
> with (both romantic and platonic) in which you don't arrive with
> baggage, which everyone in the Habitat may be aware of because of
> rampant gossip.
>

The need for anonymity is very much a north american requirement.

>
> You may be able to transfer to another office within your company.
> You could quit and get another job. You could pick up stakes and
> move to another city. I'm saying that in the early days of the first
> Habitat that there is no other city to move to unless you go back to
> Earth, and that option may be too expensive to consider. So now
> you're feeling trapped. You want to find a release for your social
> anxiety and your "flight reflex" isn't an option. How can we help
> this person cope?
>
I'm assuming that pyschitrists are available on the colony. Perhaps in
higher than average porportions.

Perhaps a mandatory psych vist may also be necessary.

On top a company would want to be held liable for importing a serial
killer, so prescreening is probably more than just an interview on earth.

Finally Earth returns may be more common than believed.

>
> And what if you don't know Jack about farming or machinery? Who
> would you displace? Where would they go to work?
>

Actually companies that do work on frontier area make sure everyone
has at least some training on everything. Also they rotate people
fairly regularly to keep the people psychologically health.