Digest Number 713

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 20:55:19 -0000
From: "victoriatangoman"
Subject: Re: Habitat Population Control

[]

> Hi. It's nice to hear a new voice. Here's my take on your axioms and
> argument.

> I pretty much agree with axiom 1.

[]

> I'd say that they probably would allow for some growth
> over time, so they wouldn't fill it up to the max immediately. But
> growth would be limited and some population control measures would
> be necessary. It may be that the population would be temporary
> workers on assignment for 5 years and then return to Earth.

I am glad we agree here; though honestly I was hoping that by stating
the axioms as such, I could put them out-of-bounds and get down to the nuts
and bolts of the actual population control issue. Still, the 'Population of
Temporary Workers' angle is interesting.... Would such a population be
single-gender? Just unmarried folks? Assuming a mixed bachelor and
bachelorette population, would marriage then be discouraged? What about
accidents and outright defiance? In the case of families, would childbirth
be forbidden, or controlled? And if controlled, then controlled how? Would
population control even be an issue - if your temporary population is much
smaller than the maximum population, and has a staggeringly huge growth rate
of 5%, you won't hit the limits before you sent them all home. What about
the expense of the return tickets though? Who pays? And what about folks
who can't pay?

> At the other extreme, an Island 3, with a population limit of
> 10,000,000 will take a long time to fill up.

[]
True, it IS a longer term process on larger habitats; but it will reach
the limits in finite time. So I hope that our discussion here will be
fruitful, even for them.

> The interior construction work will require different skill sets and
> robots than the equipment and skills needed to fabricate the
> pressure shell and establish the biocylinder, so if the population
> planning models call for another Habitat in X years time, this can
> be planned for and built while the population grows.

Good point that - is part of the tax structure a 'Social Security' type
fund, saved against the day a new habitat is needed?

> Your second axiom is also true but too narrowly defined. ISTM that
> you're looking within the Habitat as the arena in which the
> technology must be applied to overcome the problem. If more CO2 in a
> plant growing environment will yield higher biomass output, then
> technology can try to find a way to replicate the process without
> CO2, or we can just process some NEO Methane Ice and pump it into
> the plant growing pod and we haven't robbed the existing biotorus of
> its stock of CO2.

No, I consider the entire construct as a single unit for purposes of our
discussion here. If a semi-urban population area has attached, associated,
remotely connected - or whatever - agricultural areas, then the agricultural
areas obviously are considered along with the population they support. And
my second axiom applies: there is still a limit to how efficient your
technology at the moment can make those ag areas.

> Your third axiom also rings true but I don't see it as a problem
> because new Habitats can be built.

The third axiom was intended to be considered in light of the other two;
putting new construction out of bounds. Start with any colony with ample
room, then the population fills it (a century goes by...). Now, the wise
ruling body builds extra living area and agricultural resources to the
absolute limit of their engineering ability with the amazingly improved
materials now developed, and the population fills it (more time passes).
Now the wise and benevolent ruling body, already at the limits of
construction, upgrades all the life support systems at great expense, and
the agricultural areas - already very productive - are made incredibly more
so; then the population fills it... and my discussion BEGINS. The point
was, and is, once the actual, honest and for true, we just CANNOT by any
means support more population in a single habitat, limit is reached (or even
just approached) and new construction isn't an option - then what?

> I'm in agreement with your position only if the citizen's of the
> first Habitat's are there on temporary assignments. Then there'll be
> little need to expand unless it's warranted by the export economy.
> There could be room for 8000 workers and 2000 children. The workers
> would be selected for small family size and births would be planned
> for, but after a period the workers would go back to Earth and new
> singles and couples would go up.

Ok, as I said - it's an interesting scenario, but it does sidestep the
issue a bit, since it isn't a population that you have to provide for in the
future, e.g. - they aren't actually colonists. Hard to imagine companies
wanting to put up with population of workers - given a labor force limited
by life support and transportation costs - many of whom don't work (being
children - who need their own infrastructure - or otherwise employed
spouses).

> If, OTOH, we're talking about permanent settlers, then I think
> there'll be different dynamics at work.

[]

> On Earth, as you've undoubtedly noticed, there are complicating
> factors that are assoicated with economic growth. In orbit, that
> growth and prosperity will have other issues to deal with but lack
> of space and overcrowding will probably not be significant.

Um. Is this a handwave? I'm not too worried about the economy... but
the whole issue of population growth and control is precisely what I'd like
to address. In fact, see my paragraph you quoted below....

>> I don't mean to start up the whole Fascist Blood-slinging feud
>> again, but it has surprised me that nobody has approached the issue
>> of breeding from the rather obvious (and I hope relevant) angle of
>> population control and life support stresses.

> Yes, this is an obvious issue but I think you need to lay out an
> argument for why it is relevant. What would prohibit the
> construction of new Habitats and the resulting growth in economy,
> citizen mobility, and sheer variety of experiences?

I'd thought that I had placed construction of a new habitat out of
bounds; but my apologies if that was not clear. If a new habitat is
factored in, I am still not sure that it is a magical cure all... though
your idea of setting funding aside for new habitat construction is a very
good idea, and a great example of planning today for the problem tomorrow.
Still, there are issues with new habitats; I'd hoped to leave them off and
concentrate on the issues surrounding policy in a habitat as it approaches
the limits of its resources.

> I think that once the investment has been made in the mining,
> refining, and fabrication infrastructure required to construct the
> pressure shells of the Habitats that there would be little call for
> all that capital and the human talent to sit idle.

As I said, this is an area I'd hoped to avoid; it is too short term -
the colonies, no matter how many you build, will fill. It is when they are
filled that I wish to examine. Also, the human talent needs to be paid, and
I am not convinced that two days after the completion of the pressure hull
of the first (or any habitat) will be a time with gobs of free capital to
throw around... I tend to think all available capital will be sunk in the
new habitat, which can only just get started paying for itself.

> There's no way
> that they mining could continue only to supply the interior
> construction of buildings, etc. The demand scales are too far apart.
> And if you can sell the land of the new Habitat to new settlers and
> businesses, then you're growing the economy, creating wealth, and
> diversifying the industrial infrastructure.

Of course selling land in a habitat being constructed is a major source
of revenue for the construction of that habitat... but I'd hoped to
concentrate on other areas of discussion than habitat construction.

> The second habitat would be less expensive because all of that
> supporting infrastructure would be considered a sunk cost. After
> that first Habitat of 10,000 permanent settlers the administrators
> would ask themselves, "if we had another 10,000 people, what could
> they do up here?" There would be a bigger domestic market so some
> products could now be built in orbit rather than imported, and
> perhaps more products can be exported. Also, consider the liquidity
> of individual capital tied up in Habitat real estate. If there are
> only 10,000 people there, and you want to sell your condo and move
> up, you've got little opportunity, but if the population is always
> increasing, you could decide to move on to the new Habitat and sell
> your condo to a newcomer.

> Finally, no more imports of toilet paper and toothbrushes. Now there
> is a toilet paper factory in orbit :) :) :)

(*Sigh*) Not to sound monotonous, but construction of a new habitat is
sidestepping the issue I was hoping to discuss here. Of course I agree
whole-heartedly that more habitats means a more robust, profitable, and
self-sufficient space economy and civilization; and that this is a VERY GOOD
thing. But even allowing construction of new habitats isn't a panacea, and
it is not self evident that it would be trivially easy; if the first habitat
cost hundreds of billions of Y2K US dollars (to establish all of the
required infrastructure for constrution) and the second habitat only costs
10% of the first... you are still faced with the problem of raising tens of
billions of Y2K US dollars from an orbital population of ten thousand. If
you say that the new habitat is funded from Terra, then you haven't solved
the first habitats population pressure problem - there will be Terran
colonists moving in.

>> In the past, this issue has been hand-waved away under the
>> presumption that 'Oh, the people living there will sort it all out,
>> I guess'; but eventually we may run into the limits which constrain
>> us here on Terra....
>> Just my two cents - anyone else have a take on this?

> EVENTUALLY we will run into the same limits. There's a lot of mass
> and energy in orbit. Perhaps when the population in orbit is 3,000
> times that of Earth, we'll have to confront the limits to growth
> issue, but should the Pilgrams of Early America have practiced birth
> control and conservation when they had an empty continent before
> them?

Birth control? Maybe not - their infant mortality rate (Heck - their
overall mortality rate) was high enough that they had enough trouble as it
was. But maybe a little more conservation would have been nice, even then.
In any event, I am not advocating that we begin practicing birth control now
for the purpose of preventing population pressure on as yet non-existent
colonies; so that argument seems to be a straw man. I am suggesting that we
think rationally now about what to do when the air runs out, just as I think
the pilgrims could have rationally thought about what their descendants may
have to face when the land ran out - granted that very few of them probably
thought much beyond their grandchildren.