Putting humans in space

On 2/12/12 8:56 AM, sraj wrote:

> One damper to the idea of having thousands (some say millions) of space
> habs orbiting the sun is the issue of conservation of mass; any thruster
> activity will lead to permanent loss of usable mass in the solar system.

But compared to the million tons per second (!) lost by the solar wind,
total spacecraft reaction mass will be a drop in the bucket.

> RENEWABLE ENERGY FOR COLONISATION OF SPACE:
>
> 1. Allot 50,000 sq Km of land in the Sahara Desert to a planetary country
> to be called SPACE COLONY ONE.

I'm with you here except for the name -- I'd prefer to reserve the
moniker "space colony" for actual space colonies.

> 2. Populate this country with 200,000 inhabitants (who are judiciously
> selected).
> 3. Give them seed money of 200 billion $

Unless my math is wrong, that's $10,000 per person. You can't even
build a house for that (well, not in a decent neighborhood and up to
code in the U.S. anyway). To say nothing of food, water, and
infrastructure... I predict these 200,000 inhabitants will be mostly
dead within the year.

> 4. They have to meet all their basic needs from the land under their
> possession (After an initial set up period of 10 years, they will be
> forbidden to trade with any country for any thing other than raw materials).

This seems silly. Even real space colonies will be trading extensively
and indefinitely, *especially* for complex manufactured goods like
computer chips.

> 5. Their job, to manufacture space colonies and suitable launch systems.

And this goes beyond silly. No isolated country of 200,000, forbidden
to import anything, will be able to launch even a small rocket into
space, much less build space colonies.

> 6. They are forbidden to use any form of energy other than solar energy for
> their operations. All rocket systems must use only Oxygen and Hydrogen.

More silliness (please forgive me for saying so). What's wrong with
nuclear? What if (say) polywell fusion reactors prove workable and
economical? What if oxygen and kerosene makes for a more economical
launcher? Or a hybrid rocket? You've already set up hundreds of
thousands of people to starve in the desert, at least you could avoid
further tying their hands in how they solve the impossible task you've
given them. :)

Best,
- Joe