New Space Settlement image

From: "Combs, Mike"
To:
Sent: Tera-feira, 19 de Dezembro de 2000 15:12
Subject: RE: [spacesettlers] Re: New Space Settlement image

[snikt]
> I agree with your thinking. Many Europeans might be comfortable in a
Bernal
> Sphere, but most Americans and others used to a little bit more distance
> between neighbors probably wouldn't settle for anything less than an
O'Neill
> Cylinder.
>

Personally, I think that I would be happy even in a station made of
discarded shuttle fuel tanks. For some reason, in Brazil most of middle
class people live in apartment buildings 3 to 30 stories high (e.g., I live
in a 50 m^2 apartment in a 8th floor), and poor people often live in
overcrowded slums; also, while American cities are usually built in flat
lands, many Brazilian cities (like mine) are built on mountains, and that
also contributes to shorten and concentrate our urban horizons. I remember
that some newer (and therefore more sprawl-like) American cities, like
Orlando, seemed very unpractical for me, with too many open spaces and too
long distances. (Plus a horrible lack of sidewalks...) On the other hand,
older cities like Philadelphia and New York have an urban density closer to
what I like.

The point is: feeling bad or good in a tiny space is just a matter of
culture. I doubt that there will be no space colonization just because
people would refuse to live in crowded rotating cans in space. I think that
even an American from, let say, New York, would feel good in a Bernal
sphere...

> Regards,
>

Regards,

> Mike Combs

Lucio Coelho