Space Colony Design interest level

Social systems are something that people on the "ground" will likely develop themselves, drawing upon their ancestral heritage and modifying them for their specific applicability to the local environment.Establishing specific minimum laws and rights to workers in these environments might begin with what people must have for survival, such as "Every worker in space must be guaranteed free air, water, food, shelter, basic(to be defined) medical care and, at the end of their work contract, return to their point of hire(something like this was part of ARAMCOs package to its non-saudi employees, without the specific mention of air). This is somewhat socialistic but only minimally so. People must also be free to move from one employer to another at will, though they may lose some bonus packages(such bonus encouragement was also part of ARAMCO. Quit before your end of contract and the company would withhold tax coverage).Then there is education of the young. ARAMCO provided it to their employees and it was of exceptional quality, since even the CEOs kids were educated with the offspring of grunts.
Such minimum guarantees can set a standard for space workers that will benefit later arrivals and provide a gross outline for social construction, with room for lassaiz faire capitalism to communalist systems and some we've never considered, even in SciFi. Some asteroid settlements may be founded by several families, pooling their resources. I expect it will take a long time before individuals can go off on their own and claim a mineral resource to develop, like the silver/gold miners of old and of course, where there are miner entrepreneurs, there will be claim jumpers. I expect personal weapons will be the norm, since a million Kms to the nearest cop station,,,well, you get the picture.
Start with what has already worked(see; ARAMCO and Saudi Arabia), what has already been built(See; Biglow modules) and go from there.

Yes, I mean every nut, wire, bolt, plant, drop of water, stone, social system, and mulch pile which is something that NASA cannot and will not be able to do. This was the reason SSI was established years ago and nothing has changed much since then. NASA is still a white collar welfare agency distributing contracts to every congressional district tethered to whatever political expediency is currently the hot button. The fact that a little bit of science sometimes get done is just a nice bonus. Makes it easier for congress people to justify getting more money to the home district.

Yes, I am looking at this as if I am the master engineering architect starting on a project that is many orders of magnitude larger than the entire Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. As the master architect my approach is not to lock in on an end technology, though I may have some favorites, but to set-up a knowledge capture system that is all inclusive, that allows for and encourages flexibility; that allows for an enforces clarity and understandability; that minimizes boilerplate and poor decisions; and that brings order to overwhelming complexity.

On 09/25/2011 07:50 AM, GARY ANSORGE wrote: If you're talking about artistic renderings, it's one thing. If you're trying to show all the wiring, plumbing, etc, that's quite another. Likely something NASA engineers should be doing, except that William Proxmire had that stricken from the NASA budget 30 years ago. He was a Democrat,,,and a moron,,,referring to NASA studies of space colonies as a waste of taxpayer money.
There have been numerous space colony artistic renderings over the years. All are fanciful, artistic, inspiring and unlikely to ever be implemented. Best bet for an off planet colony will be Lunar investment in H2O recovery at the south lunar pole and "digging in", installing prefab Biglow modules underground, possibly in old lava tubes. Plenty of radiation protection in those.

your biggest snag is that page itself, with code showing and nothing functioning.
do you want to build space colonies in space itself, or on the ground on the Moon and Mars? Or both?
May I suggest you look for some material to coat the outside with, dense and impact absorbing with minimal transfer if any of energy of impact and self healing to some extent if torn. The end result might look a bit like an odd shaped asteroid.
Sincerely,
Justina

While web browsing this week I came across http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute which has a nice Issue Based Information System (IBIS) interface which made me think about dusting off some old IBIS based code and inserting it into this tool to add requirements traceability and recursive design. My goal is to create a complete design for a space colony. A lot could be done with compendium by almost anyone before it becomes necessary to expand it. It is just a matter of clear thinking and an interest in doing something.
However, as in all things, my efforts to put together a web site to do the work, www.SpaceColonyDesign.org, has run into snags. The current ones are that my hosting company has a filter that requires that I hand enter IPs that are allowed to access the mysql database. The bigger problem is that Compendium is not connecting to the database. Which is going to require a change to Compendium which causes other problems...
The question I have, "Is it worth the effort?". If I am going to do this as a solo project then I don't need a remote mysql database or a webpage. I also have another major project on going at www.nuclearfusionpower.us that has priority. So if I do this solo, it will have to wait a few years.
So, is anyone interested in helping design space colonies from scratch? The last time I asked this there was no response but I was going after a narrow technical approach. For this approach I am starting from a much higher level so it may be quite awhile before the design gets down into more technical aspects.
Mitchell James