Human Relationships in a Habitat

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:

> The replication time for Habitats is two ~ four years. So any
> scenario that assumes "one Habitat and no more" is an interesting
> thought experiment at most. It has little or no bearing on
reality.

It's not reality yet. I'm waiting eagerly though.

> Which doesn't mean that your questions should be ignored, or that
> they aren't interesting, or that they do not have a real bearing
on
> future Habitat life, only that they have to be considered in the
> light of an expanding population, both Habitats and of the people
who
> live inside them.
>
> Xenophile (who bets you already knew this ;)

Yes, I did know this, but while the theory is that Habitat
replication could take only a few years, there still has to be a
call for it and a way to finance it.

So it's not necessarily a given that you'll have this out. I could
make a plausible case that the first Habitat will be the only one
for a decade or more. Look to NASA for plans that go askew. Look to
Iridium for market forces undercutting ambition. Look to advancing
automation for reductions in personnel requirements.

Maybe you only need 10,000 people to build your SPS or perform other
orbital commerce.

I'm looking to human nature to continue in orbit as it does on
Earth. These personal trevails will occur but the participants won't
have the same escape options.

Ryan, in the past, in those small towns, you could always pick up
stakes and find someplace else to go if it was important, or
humiliating or painful, enough. Maybe a ticket back to Earth isn't
so cheap, or even possible if you're on a work contract of defined
term.

I tend to think that even with electronic communication and media,
that 250,000 miles of distance will create an isolating effect and
small communities will add unique societal stresses that we haven't
seen before.

Granted, in the past some people dealt with the issue and stayed in
the same small Walnut Grove, but some people who couldn't take it
had to pick up stakes and move. Some people in the Habitat will stay
and cope, but for the ones who can't, what are they to do? What is
their pressure release valve?

TangoMan