Space News Letter to Editor

On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 11:42 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> I'm definitely reading between the lines because I haven't read
> Whittington's article, but I can't see how we can get to the Habitat
> stage without previously settling the moon.

Actually, I don't see how the Moon helps much, except as a source of
materials. There, perhaps the Moon is best, but one needs to trade
against Near-Earth-Objects (NEOs). NEOs have a greater range of
materials, some are energetically closer to Earth orbit, and 'launch'
from an NEO is even easier than from the Moon. Building up in small
steps towards an orbital habitat can be done in reasonably low Earth
orbit, which is quite a bit easier to get to than the Moon.

>
> The way I see it, we need a robust presence in LEO from which to
> stage our future expansion. Can ISS serve as the platform?

Too expensive and in the wrong orbit. The orbit was chosen so existing
Soviet era launch sites can reach it. An equitorial orbit is quite a
bit easier to get to (from an equitorial launch site) because of the
additional velocity from the Earth's rotation.

> I don't
> know, although I doubt it. I think the LEO station should be larger
> and capable of accomodating much more crew.
>

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.