A Suggested Program of Space Settlement]

--- Monart Pon wrote:

> Subject: [Starship_Forum] Re: A Suggested Program of Space Settlement
> Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 11:04:45 +0000
> From: "P.T. Galt"
> Reply-To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com
> To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com

> Monart Pon wrote (11/26):
>
> > I hope you would continue to offer more of your projections, in
> > particular: how you see the O'Neill-type settlements developing. Will
> > O'Neill's plans and designs have to change significantly? How likely will
> > free-space floating city and country-sized habitats come to fruition,
> > technologically?
>
> As I see it, when an O'Neill settlement finally comes to fruition, I
> don't think it would be something O'Neill would recognize. I haven't
> read O'Neill's work myself, but as I understand it, an O'Neill colony
> is envisioned as a giant construction project using more or less
> conventional assembly techniques, but vastly scaled up. E.g. the
> pictures of giant "wheel"-type space stations being assembled in
> orbit by astronauts and a swarm of space shuttle/Venture Star type
> spacecraft and/or orbital shipyards found in many of the books
> about "our future in space."

That could work if launch costs are low enough. Expect most of the labour to
be robotic though.

> Even if launch costs could be dramatically reduced, say, to $100 a
> pound or so, I do not see such construction ever being economically
> feasible. In terms of delta-V, construction difficulty/danger, etc.,
> it would be far easier and cheaper to build a city on Mars. For
> example, large habitable structures could be built on Mars out of
> locally-produced bricks and/or concrete (thick walls and arched
> roofs), then buried under a few feet of soil for radiation protection
> and airtightness, with doors and windows being the only parts of the
> building requiring anything the Romans couldn't have done.
> Transparent geodesic domes could contain greenhouses and open-air
> environments (parks, etc.), and could be produced from local
> resources. No giant orbital shipyard or complicated microgravity
> construction process necessary.

Microgravitry construction isn't really that complicated. The reason it's hard
is because the humans doing it have space suits on which really restrict
mobility. Useing robots either computer controlled or telepressence systems
would be much easier.

> "O'Neill" colonies will have to be *grown,* not built. Freeman Dyson
> proposed creating habitable environments in the Kuiper Belt using
> genetically engineered plants that would grow habitable volumes not
> unlike the way pumpkin plants produce hollow vessels. I think
> someone mentioned this proposal on this list, but I don't recall who
> it was.

That would depend on whether we can make any plants that will live in vaccum
with very cold temperatures.

> Nanotechnology offers another path, though IMO by the time Dyson's
> advanced gengineering exists, it'll be indistinguishable from
> nanotechology. The "plants" could just as "easily" be grown as
> diamond-lattice structures as genetically engineered cellulose. IOW,
> if the folks from Star Trek were to show up in one of their clunky
> metal spaceships, they might scan a diamondoid plant/colony and have
> a tough time deciding if it was a life-form or a construct. To the
> people--likely Transhumans, IMO--who live there, there would be no
> real distinction between life and technology.

Nanotech would be great for building space settlements. The size of an O'Neil
cylinder that could be made with the technology is just astounding. See
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nano4/mckendreePaper.html for more information.

> The reason such biomimetic (life-imitating) structures will be the
> path to O'Neill size space habitats is because they'd require a very
> small input of launched material (the nanobots/genegineered
> organisms) and no on-site human labor to construct. No need for
> thousands of shipyard workers in spacesuits and many thousands of
> expensive launches from Earth. Instead, a small rocket containing
> self-replicating nanoscopic or microscopic assembler/organisms would
> land on an asteroid or Kuiper Belt object and start reproducing from
> local materials, then growing into useful, human life-supporting
> shapes. In short, life will colonize the asteroids much the same way
> it colonized initially barren volcanic islands--by sending "seeds"
> that self-replicate on-site and make the place habitable for
> subsequent colonists, like Darwin's finches.

You will need to provide material for them to use to make the colony. They
aren't replicators from Star Trek.

> Another possibility that would be much easier than constructing city-
> or country-sized buildings in space would be to
> gengineer/nanoengineer the human form (and a suite of other
> organisms) to require no atmosphere (and/or breathe other types of
> atmosphere). Imagine a human body designed with closed-cycle life-
> support systems that work on a cellular level, with its skin as the
> only spacesuit its owner needs. Such settlers could move to the
> asteroidal body of their choice, plant their Trans-crops and Trans-
> animals, and build their open-space cities using even the simplest of
> techniques.

That would be great, although it would require quite a bit of genetic
engineering or really good nano-tech. We would also need a way to move around
in space.

> Nor would there be the vast, up-front capital expense and decades of
> construction before people could move in and start producing
> revenues. Had the British East India Tea Company been required to
> build a full-fledged London or Liverpool in America before they could
> send in colonists, I doubt they'd be able to raise the many billions
> it would take even today. There'd be one or two goverment-
> financed "research stations" (like the International Space Station or
> McMurdo Station in Antarctica) and old woodcuts from 1600 showing
> hundreds of city-builders working off of sailing ships building
> the "London of the future" that somebody's grandchildren might
> inhabit someday. >grin<

They might be willing to build something to hold 10000 people up front after
there is already some space infrastruture.

> I think these towns will be rather small in terrestrial terms because
> of factors such as internal transportation, external traffic (a
> spaceborne LAX offers far too much potential for city-destroying
> disaster) that raise the costs of growth higher than the costs of
> creating a new small settlment (hotel, microgravity factory, tax/data
> haven, etc.).

There will probably still be some large space cities. People will want to
build them because they can or because they want to show off.

> I expect most of these towns to be in Earth orbit and Hohmann
> transfer orbits between Earth and Mars. The first will profit from
> tourism, infobusiness and microgravity manufacturing of high-value,
> low-mass products such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and high-
> strength alloys. The latter will be wayposts for people and goods
> coming and going between Earth and Martian colonies.

Earth Orbit would be the most likely location.

> Once a critical mass of space stations exists in Earth orbit, it may
> be profitable to boost Neuffer Rings and/or "instant stations" to
> Near-Earth Objects to mine resources for use by the stations.
> However, Mars has significant advantages over NEO's as a source of
> nonperishable resources such as metals and volatiles. Since it has a
> useable atmosphere water and an Earthlike mineral composition, and
> our millennia of mining and colonizing experience is derived from
> planetary conditions, it will be easier to build substantial colonies
> and industries (using more-or-less conventional technologies) on Mars
> than on NEO's.

NEO mining wouldn't take long.

> Since Mars has not had 5000 years of human mining activity, it's
> probable that there are deposits of useful metals and minerals close
> to the surface. If the cargo is something like iron or water
> (instead of something like lettuce) it doesn't matter whether it's
> spent a year or so in transit, once a shipment schedule has been
> established.

Why bother with mars when there are a whole heap of NEOs which have no science
on the surface to wreak and are a lot cheaper?

> Nonetheless, NEO's offer the prospect of metals and hydrocarbons with
> no planetary dirt on top of them, low delta-V and short transit times
> (the last being valuable in the case of space-based "just-in-time"
> manufacturing), so there may be demand for NEO towns providing
> resources for the Earth-orbiting towns.

You also want to keep the transit times short as it will be hard to lug around
radiation shielding on a mobile spaceship.