Vulnerability of Space Settlements to Attacks

From: rmenich@... [mailto:rmenich@...]

I was reading a space book last night that claimed that people in very
large indoor areas (e.g., large domed stadia, old dirigible hangers such as
the ones at Ames, large hotel atria) do not really feel that they are
"inside".

That's interesting, in light of the doubting Thomas' constant assertion that
living inside of a Stanford Torus or a Bernal Sphere would be like living in
a shopping mall for the rest of your life, when these environments would be
a good deal larger than the kinds of areas cited above.

Of course for the most part, these are people who would prefer us to go to
Mars for romantic reasons, cannot refute any of the many points O'Neill made
regarding the disadvantages of planets, and thus simply argue that living in
an orbital habitat would be unacceptably claustrophobic. But then,
realistically, nobody is going to be living out in the open on Mars any time
in the next couple of centuries, and there's no reason to think enclosed
environments on Mars would be any bigger than what can be built in space.
In fact, I think it can be successfully argued they can't be as large.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From:
rmenich@... [mailto:rmenich@...]
I was reading a space book last night that claimed that people in very large indoor areas (e.g., large domed stadia, old dirigible hangers such as the ones at Ames, large hotel atria) do not really feel that they are "inside".

That's interesting, in light of the doubting Thomas' constant assertion that living inside of a Stanford Torus or a Bernal Sphere would be like living in a shopping mall for the rest of your life, when these environments would be a good deal larger than the kinds of areas cited above.

Of course for the most part, these are people who would prefer us to go to Mars for romantic reasons, cannot refute any of the many points O'Neill made regarding the disadvantages of planets, and thus simply argue that living in an orbital habitat would be unacceptably claustrophobic. But then, realistically, nobody is going to be living out in the open on Mars any time in the next couple of centuries, and there's no reason to think enclosed environments on Mars would be any bigger than what can be built in space. In fact, I think it can be successfully argued they can't be as large.
Regards,
Mike Combs