Human Behavior in Space

The advantages [of an arcology] are that youwould not need roads,
elevators, travelators (moving sidewalks) and just walking would beall
that is needed, with the longest average distance in a single tripbeing
only a kilometre or a ten to twenty minutes.
Try that with a week's worth of groceries, an infant, and a two-year old. Or try it if you're severely handicapped (as my wife is). The notion thatyou don't need vehicles works great if you're single, young, fit, and haveno dependents.
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.
I think we should:
1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failurerate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels willneed to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.
2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroidare
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand spacecolonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.
3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need theircolony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearbystars.
Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.