Earth Based Prototype of a Stanford Torus Space Settlement

My name is Leon Neihouse. I am recently retired from a career of 14 years in nuclear power (seven in the U.S. Navy's nuclear powered submarine program and seven in commercial nuclear power) and 35 years in shipbuilding. During this time my passion was space. I was a member of the Space Studies Institute and the Planetary Society and am presently a member of the National Space Society. I am thinking about starting a new nonprofit organization called Leaving the Cradle (LTC) Society. It would have a one thousand year mission to build a space settlement. Operations would start with construction of an Earth-based prototype of a Stanford Torus space settlement. The Stanford Torus design parameters to the nearest ten feet, derived from Page 89, Space Settlements, A Design Study, NASA SP-413 of 1977, are 5,910 feet outside diameter, 430 feet torus diameter, 50 feet diameter for each of six spokes to the hub, and a 430 feet diameter hub. The prototype and Earth-based replications of it would include entertainment options, including casinos, accessible by the general public. In its ideal from, LTC would have 10,000 local chapters aligned for full global coverage. Each LTC local chapter would act independently within its boundaries to recruit members, promote the LTC objective, solicit donations, publicize business networks supporting LTC, respond to general public concerns, and satisfy LTC local chapter members. The high performing local chapters then help the low performing local chapters with the highest rewards in LTC (recognition and advancement preference) given to those high performing local chapters who are the most successful in helping the low performing local chapters to improve. LTC boundaries would be aligned such that an average of 700,000 would reside in each local chapter but a given local chapter could include as many as two million or as few as two hundred thousand people within its boundaries. In the United States, a LTC local chapter would coincide with each of the 435 boundaries for a U.S. Representative plus the District of Columbia. The boundaries for the other 9,564 local chapters required for full global coverage would be set later. Financing to design, build, operate, and maintain Earth based models of a Stanford Torus space settlement would be acquired from donations solicited by LTC local chapters, donations from the rich and famous, and donations from three initial business networks. Microjoy Company will sell items designed to bring a little bit of joy to the purchaser. As spin offs from the prototype Earth based Stanford Torus, Microcity Enterprises will design, build, and operate housing developments that are self-sufficient with respect to energy and food and Microfarm Enterprises will design, build, and operate four season controlled environment greenhouses that use LED grow lights, elevated carbon dioxide levels, and automatic HVAC control. In a plan to elicit wide public support for its programs, the determination made last century that our planet is a target in a cosmic shooting gallery will be publicized widely. Earth has been hit innumerable times in the past by asteroids and comets and will continue to be so struck in the future. The asteroids are manageable. It is theoretically possible to detect and divert those on an Earth impacting orbit, which is the mission of the B612 Foundation. Comets, however, are not amenable to this method. If on an Earth impacting orbit as they leave the Oort Cloud/Kuiper Belt then they will collide with our planet. If of a Hale-Bopp size, the only two options are to flee or to perish. As noted by John S. Lewis in Mining the Sky, our solar system has sufficient raw materials to support a population of ten million billion people. After construction of a prototype space settlement, the LTC Society will change into a ten-thousand year mission to access these materials in a manner that will permit the human race living on Earth at the time to use a network of space elevators and space ferries so as to escape for decades or centuries into space settlements parked in Earth-Sun Lagrange orbits and thereby escape the effects of an inevitable Earth collision with a Hale-Bopp sized comet. The net result will be to build a network of space elevators with space ferries shuttling evacuees to space settlements parked in various Sun-Earth stable Lagrange orbits. An excess combined capacity will be capable of supporting all people living on Earth. A LTC early warning telescopic system will give at least a six months notice such that all will have the ability to escape from the death and destruction that will be rained down upon our planet. I am acting alone in trying to get LTC up and running but I welcome the participation of anyone else who is interested. Thanks, Leon Neihouse