What if.......?

Hello Mike,

--- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, "Mike Combs" wrote:
>
> Well, I like what Marshal Savage had to say on this topic. He
>asked
> us to imagine a cave man transported to the Middle ages. Meat
> hanging in butcher shops! Huts warmed by fire places! To the
> caveman's point of view, this is a paradise, but of course it
leaves
> a lot to be desired from our point of view. And even an inhabitant
> of the Middle Ages would scoff at the idea he was living in a
> paradise, what with the Black Death and the Spanish Inquisition and
> all.
>
> Then take that inhabitant of the Middle Ages and transport him to
our
> era. Meat wrapped in plastic in refrigerated displays! Central
> heating AND air conditioning! Surely paradise! But again, we're
> complaining about the crabgrass, and teen pregnancy, etc.
>
> While agreeing that there are no utopias, Savage still insisted
that
> there can be quantum leaps upward in the standard of living, and
that
> was all space living would represent. Space settlers will have
tons
> of personal problems, but the whole thing is worth doing for no
other
> reason than the improvement in the standard of living.
>
> On the topic of folks perhaps overselling space habitats, I heard
one
> writer say that the new frontier has always been oversold. The
> turkeys didn't REALLY blacken the sky, and those hills weren't
REALLY
> made of gold. But the Westward Movement nonetheless was a
worthwhile
> event.
>
> > What do you do in space, what use is a habitat(s) and do we
> want/need
> > a space based civilisation?
>
> I'd say the best proposal yet for what we will do for a living in
> space is build SPS. As for do we need a space based civilization,
> I'd say the answer is yes, provided we wish to remain an advancing
> industrial civilization. Of course those you were talking about
who
> would be opposed to space settlement tend to be opposed to this
also.

I like that, it's an elegant way to put things and it has the virtue
of being right. The problems come if the hype and reality are too
far out of synch. Consider, in the 1940's 50's your country (and
mine) committed large numbers of troops to wars, even where you were
not directly attacked, the troops were committed to large scale
action with the resulting casualties. They did this for reasons
that were many and varied and for this argument irrelevant but scroll
forward to today and any time any country considers using force and
committing troops to a situation there is one extra thing to
consider, ITN, CNN, BBC World and all the other instant coverage
media companies, the US and to a degree here in Australia they
discovered just how much of an effect this can be starting with a
certain part of South East Asia. This shows itself not just in wars
but in all public decisions. If you have 1000 happy new inhabitants
of a being built habitat and 5 of them are ticked off for any reason
you can be certain they are the ones who will have their faces on the
TV. At first it'll be important to keep peoples expectations in line
with reality or you'll find yourself being swamped with the bottom
feeding section of the media as they all try to find somebody else to
didn't get their phone connected five minutes after ordering it or
had a toilet that didn't flush just right. And all the time there
will be a steady flow of neo-luddites trying to pull you out of the
sky, the two (luddite and reporter) will become a self perpetuating
nuisance. Yes I think our biggest battles are going to be human ones
not technical one, just ask the Shell oil company (or any company
that owns North Sea oil rigs) if public opinion can force you to make
technically bad decisions?

> > Some of the forum have been talking about the best way to build a
> > habitat and it seems that everybody wants to build it from
> scratch.
> > There are a lot of large and not so large lumps of metal out
there,
> > why not start with them and reshape to suit. Instead of building
> your
> > habitat and coating the outside with slag from your asteroid
mining
> > operation, why not hollow out and reshape the outside of a
largeish
> > lump of metal and as you mine, you make your habitat bigger. You
> may
> > have to reinforce the shell to handle the strain but that should
be
> > possible.
>
> Given that the atmosphere is going to press outward in all
directions
> with a force of around 7 lbs/square inch, I'd feel more comfortable
> living inside of a manufactured steel hull than some raw nickle
iron
> astroid material with some reinforcement.

Me too but a good solid manufactured hull inside and out with a good
thick layer of raw, reinforced astroid material in between, sounds
okay and easy to work with, your raw materials are just sitting there
waiting for you. Just picture a large mobile factory making its way
around the inside of your soon to be habitat with raw rock in front,
worked metal behind and reinforcing studs underneath, sorry above,
ahm under your feet....that is..., ur...between the... Sorry, but,
are we spinning yet? ;-))

Darren