Space Colony Contest Results

The results of the NASA Ames 2001 Space Colony Design contest
(http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/Contest/) are now
available at
http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/Contest/Results/2001/.
Unlike previous years, the winners names are not listed due to new
federal regulations regarding posting contact information for minors on
the web.

Bala wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Please check out the Georgia Tech Experimental
> Aerodynamics Group's papers at the 38th Space Congress
> at the KSC, and the SSI Conference at Princeton. They
> can be viewed at
> http://www.adl.gatech.edu/archives/index.html
>
> Any comments would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks, Bala Ganesh.
>

--
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020
goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need
to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid
are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500
times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space
colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their
colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.