Heat management, recycling, $, and space ores

Ed Minchau wrote:

> - My molecular dynamics simulations
> completely ignore gravity altogether - there isn't enough
> experimental evidence of gravitational theory for distances less than
> 1mm; and any effects are overwhelmed by several orders of magnitude
> by the electromagnetic field.
>

Gravity is always ignored in computational chemistry because the force is
negligable in the scales simulated. Gravity might be important if you try to
make molecules on the multi-mm scale, and certainly will be important if
anyone ever makes molecules on the km scale -- as is necessary for a pure
buckytube space elevator.

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 2020 goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space colonies,

each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.