Hasn't been anything here for nearly a month, so I thought I'd go and repeat something I posted over at "the other Group." Feel free to read or ignore as you please, and if it annoyed you the first time then I'm sorry to annoy you again (although it really didn't seem to bother anybody, and some people had had similar ideas).
So put your dinos, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, or Dixonian gigantolopes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lot7D_cbt-0#tm45s) on a large habitat. A Bishop ring would be large enough for any critter the Earth has ever hosted, but even an O'Neill cylinder 20 Km wide by 100 Km long, an Island Four or Five perhaps, should be enough for most creatures.
Well, obviously this is for when you've been building these things for a while, and not something you'd do right at first. Still, when you've got enough resources to build the equivalent of thousands of Earths, then why not dedicate an "Earth" or two (or fifty) to this sort of thing?
Your sort of jumping to the end game. Very large habitats for large
creatures. The first biomedical research that will have to be done off
planet will be tiny creatures: bacteria and viruses. We are probably
almost ready for there to be a market for off-planet remote controlled
biomedical labs.
Mitch
From Hank Smith, what is this Jurassic Habitat, sounds like a dragon's tale!! HAHA!!
Ah, now that's something I hadn't thought of. We don't want viruses, bacteria, or fungi escaping research labs any more than we want dinosaurs escaping. Less, in fact, because dinosaurs would be easier to find, and wouldn't reproduce nearly as quickly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUfxnDAAxHI
>In the bookJurassic Park, and in the movies based on it, one concern was the dinosaurs escaping
Similar reasoning supports the idea of off-planet penal colonies. There was one in Alien 3. Colonial America was actually a penal colony before Australia was. Transport of the prisoners would have to be cheap in order for it to be worthwhile to use them as indentured servants in space. It might be cheap enough to pack them into Sea Dragons in breathable liquids and launch them at high gees (the breathable liquids protecting them from the g forces -- say, 20 gees or so) to minimize gravity losses.
You could even make a business out of it, charging money to take the prisoners off of another party's hands. California, for example, might be willing to pay a lot to get its lifers off of its hands.
Prisoners as indentured servants warehoused in space would make an interesting movie, kind of the flip-side to Elysium. In Elysium, Earth is a hell-hole while the elite live in a space-borne paradise. In this new movie, Earth would be a paradise because all the dirty jobs, strip-mining, and icky people have been off-loaded into space.
I suppose that death row inmates could be sent into space to be publicly eaten by dinosaurs for the entertainment and intimidation of the masses. I don't endorse that, btw.
>kind of the flip-side toElysium
Elysatraz.
Perhaps let them freely earn as much money as they like, doing whatever they like, but only allow the money to go toward buying their freedom. Once the price of freedom is paid, they're free to keep all future earnings.
But what will they do to earn money?
According to NASA, keeping people in space fed is a big, expensive, unsolved problem. Perhaps they will produce food for space inhabitants for less than it costs to import it from Earth.
According to NASA, only certain people(with the "right stuff") should even be allowed into space. They're not exactly egalitarian...but space, like every other new environment we've expanded into, will select for those traits most likely to enhance survival,,,or kill off the losers...for that we need LOTS of people out there.
Feeding people in space only requires we grow grains to feed chickens, rabbits and fish...and all grains really NEED is water, light and CO2,,,and a few minerals...(I guess we can also grow veggies,,,but they're not MY preferred food)
My Great grandma grew lots of rabbits and chickens on her semi arid, six acres in Hawthorne, Calif,,,we ate a lot of hasenpfeffer.
I do believe that in-space food production will be a big, big business once there is a large (several hundreds at a time) population in orbit and beyond. This will be big business for exactly the reason you suggest: it'll be cheaper to grow food in orbit than to launch it into orbit. I see no reason why prisoners would be a good way to do that. A few free people who are dedicated to expanding humanity into space, and are being paid a decent salary, together with advanced machines, can do a much better job than can slave labor.
Or dinosaur meat, to get back to the original post.
,
ul
-->
> I do believe that in-space food production will be a big, big business once there is a large (several hundreds at a time)
> population in orbit and beyond. This will be big business for exactly the reason you suggest: it'll be cheaper to grow
> food in orbit than to launch it into orbit.
Its the reason why ONeill thought there might even be a place for the Amish on the High Frontier.
It wont be the case that everyone living in orbit will be SPS assembly technicians. Even at that early point when theyre the majority of the population,
those folks will eat food and need eyeglasses, etc.
Regards,
Mike Combs
|
I expect people who have had experience growing mono-culture plants in a closet will be quite useful in space. They are using the same led grow lights in Calif. as are our people on the ISS. So far, it appears most plants are more photo-tropic in their orientation than gravity dependent...
Gary
In that never-finished family sitcom I was working on, the husband works in construction, but the wife works in agriculture. There are also school teachers, restauranteurs, doctors, cops, paper-pushers, and the teenage son works part-time as a life-guard at the low-G barrel pool. I'm sure the list could be easily extended.
From Hank Smith, so we need Space Farming, sounds outta this world, right? HAHA!!
According to NASA, only certain people(with the "right stuff") should even be allowed into space. They're not exactly egalitarian...but space, like every other new environment we've expanded into, will select for those traits most likely to enhance survival,,,or kill off the losers...for that we need LOTS of people out there.
Feeding people in space only requires we grow grains to feed chickens, rabbits and fish...and all grains really NEED is water, light and CO2,,,and a few minerals...(I guess we can also grow veggies,,,but they're not MY preferred food)
My Great grandma grew lots of rabbits and chickens on her semi arid, six acres in Hawthorne, Calif,,,we ate a lot of hasenpfeffer.
According to NASA, keeping people in space fed is a big, expensive, unsolved problem. Perhaps they will produce food for space inhabitants for less than it costs to import it from Earth.