How to get to 10 trillion people in this solar system?

I'm not sure that's what she meant. Still that brings up an interesting
point, in a habitat with a population of several million, would the plant
life in the habitat be enough by itself to do the job of keeping the air
fresh, the water clean or would it need help? Without doing the research I
am only guessing but my own personal feeling is you would need to have a lot
more than the ecosystem you could fit in the habitat. I saw a documentary
once about an English hotel that recycled its sewerage. They ran it through
the normal primary and secondary treatments, then they cycled the water and
sludge through a system of ponds with different kinds of plants, fish and
small crustaceans, at the end they had a pond filled with trout that ended
up on the plates of the restaurant, I think the company that built it was
called "Living Machines" but I'm not sure. Habitats will not be closed
systems, people and goods will come and go, energy will flow through it,
perhaps the H2O, O2 and CO2 levels will be adjusted by simply pumping in and
out new elements.

How much plant life is needed to keep a person alive? To provide oxygen and
food, now scale that up to enough to keep a million people, now add enough
to not just keep them alive but enough to provide kind of life most people
want to live. I think they are going to need mechanical help, luckily they
have plenty of energy, they can use it to rip any compound into individual
elements. It is an interesting problem and I suspect that Helen and like
minded people will never find a green Eden in orbit but they might just find
something that on the surface looks like it but under the surface is a high
tech machine giving the illusion of Eden.

Darren

On 8/6/06 1:47 AM, "Alexander Roderick"