Super-habitats

On 9/5/06, Darren wrote:
(...)
> Grrrr ,
> I am typing this at my desk at home (currently on extended leave on doctors
> orders nothing serious, Im happy to say), from where I sit I can see the
> main TV in the lounge room and the Discovery channel is on and one of few
> things guaranteed to light my fuse just came on, an advert/public service
> announcement from those paragons of veracity and honour, ECO
> (http://www.oneearth.org/ ), the advert (and lets not kid ourselves, it was
> an advert, begging for money) was giving the usual message, use less,
> recycle more. Now there is nothing wrong with that but go to their site and
> you soon see that what they are really saying is lower your standard of
> living and that is wrong, very wrong. This particular ad really get to me
> (my wife is sick of hearing my rant every time it comes on, ),
> it goes on about imaging that you live on an island and how your family is
> growing and how you must take care because you can only have so many on your
> island, then it tells us that in a way we all live on an island and how
> while the Earth is big it isnt big enough to support too many, it can
> support our need but not our greed. Then comes the line that makes me grind
> my teeth, it says, So please, use only what you need, its not like we can
> go shopping somewhere else. With a shot of the Earth from space as the
> background. I want to grab them and yell into their faces LOOK UP. The
> irony of it this time is the show that had just finished was about going to
> Mars and possible colonies, the final shot of the show was of a hollowed out
> asteroid going off to the stars. , okay, sorry about that but I had to
> get it out of my system

Although I also hate this kind of "Club of Rome" reasoning of this
people, I have to concede to them that nowadays we are not really a
spacefaring civilization - and until we reach that level their
arguments will carry weight. But I also suspect that even *after* we
become a de facto spacefaring civilization, gaining access to
comparatively limitless resources, those people will simply adapt to
the new situation. Perhaps showing a diagram of the Solar System and
saying "it's not like we can go shopping somewhere else" ;-). For me
its more a matter of ideology than really tackling real problems.

(...)
> If you look at what we do on oceans or bodies of water now, other than
> commercial fishing, I can see no reason to have deep water, we really on use
> the top couple of metres. For swimming beaches the water should would not
> need to be more than, say, 5 metres. Some places, reefs, caves and other
> diving attractions, could have deeper water, for safety it should be around
> 10 metres for the most part with some sections going to perhaps 100 meters
> for the most skilled divers. Then there are the fishing beaches and river
> and lakes. My father-in-law is an avid recreational fisherman, sorry did I
> say avid, I meant insanely obsessed. For this you would tailor the water to
> the depth needed by the fish in the area, some would be shallow, 1-2 metres
> and some deep, up to 100 metres, I see this as the limit really, deeper than
> that is not needed. The most popular and expensive houses are situated near
> the water (okay, I know this is not always true but 99%), for that reason I
> can see our habitat having a lot of water or rather water frontage, the
> bodies of water would not be very large, lots of rivers, lakes and a number
> of seas were you would have beaches, they would be long and winding but
> not very wide. One question that arises is do you go to the trouble and
> expense to put in waves? For that matter would you have to? Waves are a
> function of currents, underwater topography and the action of wind over
> large bodies of water, on something this big you may have natural waves.

I have also thought about the market value of coastlines, so probably
one would like to *maximize* the coastlines in such artificial
planets, opting for heavily fractal continents that would look like a
root/fissure pattern from space.

And I think that waves would emerge naturally. Also, artificial
planets reasonably close to *real* planets could even have tides.
Thinking better, even artificial planets circling the Sun in the
habitable zone and with a rotation axis perpendicular to the ecliptic
would have solar tides as they rotate.

> As for the mountains, I can see no reason to put in real, solid masses that
> big, you would have to counterbalance them and have an equal mass on the far
> side of the ring. That doesnt mean you cant have a couple of mountain
> ranges or even caves for those insane people who enjoy such things ( I went
> cave diving once, then I regained my sanity). For your mountains, if you
> wanted real rock, how about this, final a real lump of rock about the size
> you want (an asteroid that is not a pile of rubble) give it the outside
> shape you want and then hollow it out so you have a mountain that is just
> 10-20 metre thick, put it on your ring with a supporting structure under it,
> so it doesnt collapse under its weight.
(...)

Yeah, the hollow mountain idea is cool, agoraphobic people that would
not like the openness of the artificial planet could even live in cave
cities inside! ;-)

Also, the atmospheric contention walls in the borders of the habitat
could be crafted to superficially resemble (very high) mountain
ranges.