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

it appears we are in complete agreement here. i believe that even
genration ships will have to acknowledge the loss and plan for it.
once they reach their destination, in order to return (or go to
another star), they will have to refill their surplus for the future
generations.

some of the systems are already known and used. others will have to
be tweaked or totally created.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Darren wrote:
>
> Robert,
>
> Wish I could take credit for the idea of using a magnetic field to
separate
> out ionised matter into separate elements, don't know who first
came up with
> it but alas it wasn't me. From what I understand there are a number
of
> problems with the idea, again memory fails me, I would have to look
it up to
> see what they were but if I remember correctly the opinion was that
none of
> them were show stoppers just further development, more engineering.
>
> Personally I think that there is going to be a mix of solutions to
how waste
> is handled, some will be the result of the normal function life,
for example
> the grass in your lawn or in front of the public hall, all the
plants in the
> habitat will take in CO2 and pump out O2, micro-organisms in the
water will
> take in and breakdown organics and waste and will in turn become
food for
> the next level up the food chain and so on. Biological engineering
are going
> to be a big part of future technology, I expect that by the time we
are
> building space habitats we will be growing many of our machines,
bio-based
> systems will most likely be doing most of the heavy lifting in
keeping the
> habitats biosphere in good shape but that doesn't mean that
mechanical and
> chemical system will not have a place, they will, as back-up and
load
> balancing systems. In a system the size of the space suit a
failure of life
> support might give you just a few seconds or minutes to fix the
problem, a
> shuttle minutes become hours and in something the size of a habitat
the
> hours becomes days or weeks maybe even months, systems that big have
> correspondingly large response times.
>
> A civilisation capable of building a space habitat is going to have
huge
> resources at its command, if you can build a habitat you can move
the mass
> needed to keep it supplied without 100% or near 100% recycling.
That being
> said it will most likely be cheaper to recycle some things and if
the
> habitat has any kind of actual trade, that is makes and ships
things like
> super magnets, high purity crystals, materials that need container
less or
> convection free manufacture then it is going to have to have an
input of new
> mass. How close to 100% recycling (and as I have already said 100%
is not
> possible, there will always be some loss even if it is only small)
may be a