It takes a lot of nitrogen to fill living-space (was The sun is whesolar)

> We might not need nitrogen; a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere at the
> partial pressure of 0.20 Earth-sea-level might do the job. We would
> have to try it and see, of course. Marshall Savage in "The Millenial
> Project" designed his space hatitats this way, and arrived at a
> solar system maximum population of 5e18 people.

While thinking very highly of Savage, I'd take that with a grain of salt. One point he was flat wrong about was his assertion that such an atmosphere would be less of a fire hazard; it would be more of one due to lowered heat conduction away from the flames.

Zubrin posits a 1/3 atmosphere pressure with oxygen percentage tripled. O'Neill recommended with oxygen doubled. Since O'Neill's recommendation is the most conservative of the 3, it's the one I tend to trust the most.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of William
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 11:35 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: It takes a lot of nitrogen to fill living-space

We might not need nitrogen; a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere at the
partial pressure of 0.20 Earth-sea-level might do the job. We would
have to try it and see, of course. Marshall Savage in "The Millenial
Project" designed his space hatitats this way, and arrived at a
solar system maximum population of 5e18 people.

There's also quite a bit of nitrogen in both the Kuiper Belt and the
Oort Cloud.