Space Settlement FAQ's]

I'm forwarding this post from another list for comments, please.

Monart
Starship Aurora

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Subject: [Starship_Forum] Re: Space Settlement FAQ's
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 17:44:18 -0600
From: Dennis May
Reply-To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com
To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com

Responding to Mike Comb's Space Settlement FAQ

I just had a few comments. I noticed a certain
bias against nuclear development in space which
was not explained. I saw discussion concerning
the benefits of solar power out to a great distance
from the sun but much of the construction materials
for large space based habitats past Mars and the
asteroid belt would likely have to be imported
from the inner solar system. The vast majority of
mass in low gravity wells is in the form of cometary
material well past Pluto. In this region nuclear
rockets and nuclear fission/fusion hybrid reactors
could turn this vast desert of ice into a garden.

The problems concerning populations doubling
every forty years are acknowledged to only be delayed
by moving into the nearby solar system. In reality
it does not directly benefit Earth population pressures
at all [the indirect benefits may be large however].
There has never been any serious talk of large masses
of people moving to space in order to relieve the Earth
of population pressures. The numbers of people you
would need to move are simply staggering. The most you
can hope for is to establish new off-Earth
civilizations from a vanishing small seed population
originating from the Earth. There are more people
in the rest of the world now then there was before
European colonization of the Americas. A small
number of people migrated to the Americas but
populations continued to grow outside and inside
of the Americas. Geometric population growth will
occur in space the same as it does on Earth. After
a geologically very short time the solar system will
feel population pressures the same as the Earth
does now. Long before that happens more seed
population groups will have moved outside of the
solar system.

Moon, Mars, and/or asteroid infrastructure will
need to be erected before large space based
habitats can be erected from materials originating
from space. Although the Moon and Mars have low
gravity, a sleeper car on a circular track can
perform artificial gravity the same as a spinning
platform, at a greatly reduced cost. Asteroids
in particular may require circular tracks for
artificial gravity health reasons. Economics
works in space like anywhere else. Industrial
processes will drive where and how habitats are
born during early development. At some point
luxury may allow untold types of habitats.

Securing the niche is always the hardest first
step. The resources and know how exist today
to begin the colonization of space. Big government
concerned with immediate day to day functions
and the next election may eventually allow
the private sector to proceed but it will always
be by permission, not by right.

I think the first steps towards a future in space
should be revitalizing the nuclear rocket program
and the single stage to orbit space plane programs.
Next setting up mining on the Moon and Earth's
small asteroid companion in concert with a
permanently manned Mars colony. This combination
will establish a permanent technological infrastructure
which can build up indefinitely from there including
free-floating space structures if seen as economical
in light of industrial developments.

Dennis May