For or Against . . .

> One of the interesting things that happen with frontier living is
> the innovation to fill a lack of imported items (Zubrin has been
> crusading the thought that we need to go to Mars just to keep up our
> frontier style innovation). Mainly, you're toothbrush analogy. Bamboo
> (that you recommended and I have thought of as well independantly)
> and Goat Hair (goats'n'rabbits where the recommendation for milk and
> meat from both O'Neil and the Stanford study) could make a reasonably
> good abrasive toothbrush.
Bidets instead of toilet paper? Only experience can tell, of course, but a well-designed colony would likely have plenty of energy to recycle and purify water, and heat it. You could shower with very little or no soap, just rub yourself vigorously under the hot water for some time, perhaps with a bar of something resembling pumice, or a heavy-duty goat hair brush. Soap and shampoo could be for Sundays, even if you showered twice per day every day. Soap could be $50 per bar, and half an hour of hot shower a few cents... as for wiping after shitting, I remember I once had the screaming shits so bad that I was compelled to stick my backside into the shower every time I had been to the toilet, every fifteen minutes for half a day. This experience tells me that if bidets were as cheap as toilet paper, they might be superiour.

> Side note related to bamboo, do a little research on "Hemp"
> (similar to the plant that produces marijuana but different in some
> important ways) and you'd be amazed at how usefull that plant is!
Different in that it contains so little THC that you would need to smoke a few acres of it to get high. I have read about how useful it is for fibers. It could form the basis of clothes making industry, before cotton or sheep were introduced. I suppose you could build houses with bamboo frames and woven hemp for walls. I also suppose you could have common kitchens, where ten families shared an outdoor kitchen with a hemp-sheet screen above, to reduce the need to manufacture or import kitchen facilities such as stoves. Similarly shared toilets and showers.

> Bicycles? Why would you need rubber tires on a flat concrete
> street?
[...]
Some of the streets would likely be dirt roads in an early colony. In a Bernal sphere many of the roads would be steep, so I suspect mountain bikes would be preferred. Also because all distances would be short.

I suspect that an early space habitat could be an interesting mixture of high and low technology. Goat hair toothbrushes, Third World village type houses, hemp clothing except for the Sunday sets brought from Earth, all foot and bicycle transportation within the habitat --- and plenty of electricity and heating for cooking and washing, and a computer terminal in every house.

Jon L. Beck.