Radio observatories on the Moon

I think the idea was that the robustness of the system to shocks and
upsets would increase with increased numbers and varieties of species. If
there are only humans and three other species in a habitat far from Earth,
and one of the species has an epidemic of disease that decimates its
population, then it might be difficult for the remaining species to ensure
the right gas balances for humans in the habitat. If, on the other hand,
there are hundreds of species in the habitat, then perhaps the loss of one
or two to disease would not be quite so disruptive on the overall gas
balances.

Ron

"Combs, Mike" mikecombs@...
04/16/03 03:07 PM

His reasoning was that such a small ecosystem can never be stable. You
can't have a lawn as a stable, isolated ecosystem. I asked him why he
thought that a space colony must necessarily be as simple as a lawn. It
was his impression, and anyway, he had created the group and was the
moderator. He was a biologist by training, and I assume that he was right
in that a closed ecosystem as un-diverse as a lawn cannot be stable.

I would say those sealed flasks with the shrimp, algae, and bacteria you
can buy now give lie to that assertion. Of course they're not always
stable forever (I was just reading Carl Sagan's account of his purchase of
one in "Billions and Billions"; his died after a few months). But
sometimes they are stable for quite some time. Also, one does not have
the opportunity to make the kind of internal adjustments to a sealed
desktop curio that one would have inside a space settlement.

One of the criticisms leveled at the Biosphere II project was that they
tried to reproduce many and varied habitats in their enclosure (basically
tried to reproduce the Earth in microcosm), when a simpler, more
utilitarian ecology might have functioned better.

Regards,
Mike Combs