Space Settlement

On 3/16/07, tom.bielecki wrote:
(...)
> Hello, my name is Tom Bielecki, and i am a 17 year old studnet from
> Calgary, Canada.

Welcome on board, Tom!

(...)
> My settlement so far is a torus, with a major radius of 2 or 3 KM, and
> a minor radius of 1.5 KM. Do you think that this spinning colony
> should have a "ceiling" to hold in the atmosphere? if it does, then it
> blocks all UV light, needed by living organisms (which can be created
> artificially with lights), if it doesn't have a ceiling, then
> particles might enter the atmosphere, we would have natural UV, and,
> hey, it would look cool. What do you think?

Of course your torus will need a "ceiling", otherwise air will escape
to space. Actually, the residential and agricultural sectors of it
need to be completely enclosed annd pressurized. UV light is no
problem, since you can project glass windows with filters that let the
desired amount of UV in sunlight enter the colony. (Remember that most
of the UV will have to be filtered, for in fact there is *too much* UV
in sunlight in space. On Earth the UV is nearly completely filtered by
the ozone layer, which is good.) Another solution (which may be more
complicated) is to completely enclose the habitable space in some sort
of opaque material and use artificial lighting. (Again, you can always
engineer lamps that give off UV in frequencies and intensities similar
to those found on Earth surface. And in agricultural sectors you may
indeed change completely the spectrum of the light in order to
maximize crop production.)

> I am planning on the settlement being a technological cocoon for the
> settlers (starting: 500,000 ?). This would allow the citizens to live
> IN technology, rather than WITH technology. Nerve centers on the body
> will be able to create more senses in the body... possibly even a
> telecommunications link between individuals, to "hear what they hear"
> "know what they know" "feel what they feel." I am looking at creating
> somewhat Post-human citizens, who are in a symbiosis with the
> technology around them. Only basic education will be needed. When a
> person does not understand, or know something, they can interact with
> the colony's data center, which can feed information at the required
> time, to the required individual. It will be like a wikipedia,
> accessed by all, at any time. This will truly be a utopian society. No
> government. No disease. No money. No businesses. No services. People
> FOR the people. It will be fundamentally basic, on the social level,
> yet highly advanced, and observed, at the technological level. Only
> the best of the best will be chosen to live here, in the Lagrange
> orbit, L5. A quantum computer, and server hive will reside in the
> center of the colony, provided (near) instant answers to all of life's
> questions, if needed.
(...)

While widespread neural interfaces, quantum servers and so on may be
future developments, my understanding is that the space habitat
contest is intended to use technologies that we already know to work.
Also, as far as I understand the contest is worried about the physical
structure itself and not with how society will work in there. So I
would advise you to be conservative and stick to technical details
(and to existing technologies), and also avoid talking about how
society will work in the torus, unless it is some aspect directly
related to the functioning of the colony/artificial ecosystem.

Also, the 500K number for a colony 3Km in diameter seems too big.
Remember that a lot of the area of this structure will have to be used
for agriculture, and food production and air/water recycling will be
the population limiting factors.