How Earthlike?

From: Combs, Mike
To:
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 11:46 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] How Earthlike?

[snikt]
> My view is that the more Earthlike space habitats are, the easier it will
be
> to sell property lots to people who were born and raised on Earth. I
> suppose that would be more of an issue in the early days than in later
ones,
> though.
>

However, most of the human population is urban nowadays. Even in a third
world country like mine, 81% of people live in cities, some of them *really*
big, like So Paulo (10 million) or Rio (6 million). Then, if you re-create
a Terran urban environment, I don't think that it is unreasonable to think
that most of the mainly urban Terran population will not find the habitat
unbearably alien. I wouldn't.

[snikt]
> Well, it becomes a question of intention. Is the space habitat intended
as
> a replacement for a city, or as a replacement for a region of the Earth's
> surface? If the latter (the view I tend to take), then rolling hills etc.
> seem reasonable.
>

I tend to take the former view, the habitat as a city. Perhaps because I
always lived in cities... Also, Belo Horizonte, the city where I have been
living for the past 20 years, is big enough (2 million people) to make the
city limits (and what lies beyond them) barely noticeable: if I look through
my window, the *only* thing that I can see is the city, with buildings and
houses sprawling to the horizon. (Although walking a few blocks I can see
the Curral mountain range in the south of the city. Well, people interested
in seeing the city can take a look at the English version of the tourism
section at the city hall site:
http://www.pbh.gov.br/belotur/ingles/index.htm .) Because of that, a more
natural environment like a forest or even a farm is more alien to me than a
city-like space habitat would probably be.

> Some people say no one would ever live in a space habitat because they
could
> never leave. While that's obviously wrong, I think a city which spread to
> the uttermost confines of the habitat would not be pleasant. It would be
> nice to leave the city for the "country" every once and a while without
> leaving the habitat.
>

Perhaps for some people, I agree... As for me, the last time that I was in a
farm was more than a year ago. I was attending a birthday barbecue of one of
my co-workers and spent a few hours there. I can hardly remember the event
(oh, well, I remember that the barbecue was delicious ;-) and I'm sure that
I wouldn't miss it...

> Having said that, I wouldn't rule out cities with tall buildings, as
O'Neill
> did. That was a matter of personal taste on his part, and people of all
> different kinds of tastes will build orbital settlements.
>

Indeed. Nevertheless, in the beginning, when space habitats will be by no
means the cheapest things in the world (or, rather, off-world ;-), I would
think that habitats with near-optimal filling of the internal volume (i.e.,
cities with tall buildings) would be preferred. It is the same real state
phenomenon that happens in New York or Tokyo or So Paulo: when you have a
piece of land that costs a lot, you try to get your money back and make
profit by putting a tall building in that place and selling a lot of
apartments - in a sense, multiplying the surface area that you bought.

[snikt]
> Regards,
>

Regards,

> Mike Combs

Lucio Coelho