Mars Family Robinson

From: sraj [mailto:sraj@...]

> On the other hand the O'Neil concept suffers from the disadvantage
that we are adapting the environment to suit us,
> rather than adapting to the environment. Organic species have
proliferated by adapting to the environment, as we see,
> even in the case of humans dispersed on planet Earth.

Eh... to a certain extent. We have darker skinned people where there's
greater UV/lighter skinned ones where there's less. And stocky people
where it's colder/taller-thinner people where it's warmer. But I'd say
the invention of the hut and clothing has more to do with the broadness
of our range on the planet than these relatively modest Darwinian
adaptations. I see orbital habitats as a continuation of that trend.

> If the need arises and the environment can support a larger population
you can bet your bottom $ that even Highly-trained
> professionals, will breed like rabbits.

There are two schools of thought on this, I suppose. Savage, in
"Millennial Project", argues that since reproduction was rapid on the
American frontier, we'll see similar rates in space. I repeated this
argument on one of the space newsgroups. Someone else pointed out that
the average pioneer family in early America was a rural, farming family,
so they had family sizes consistent with that. He expected space
settlers to instead have family sizes consistent with urban
professionals. His argument was that couples do not determine family
size based on their assessment of the surrounding limits to growth (just
look at the 3rd world), and I have to say his argument persuaded me.

> Otherwise, we indeed have something to worry about - we will have to
fill the O'Neil habs with clones.

I remember getting into a debate with somebody on Usenet who started out
by begging the question that human reproduction was inadequate to
support space settlement, and then proposed artificial wombs and robotic
child rearing as the solution to the "problem". I disagreed with his
underlying premise, and suggested that immigration from Earth need not
be as difficult as he was imagining. Call me old-fashioned, but I found
his scenario chillingly inhuman, and advocated the standard way of
reproducing, which strikes me as perfectly adequate.

> Yes, designing any craft to operate in the aerodynamic regime, like
the Space Shuttle is complicated. But designing for
> the space environment where there are no major dynamic forces acting
need not be equally complicated.

100% agreement. An "intercolonial shuttle" needn't be nearly as
complicated as the Space Shuttle, nor a fraction as expensive to
operate.

Regards,

Mike Combs