first post thoughts...

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Patryk

> I have seen artist's concepts for huge space platforms with park like
interiors that are touted to comfortably house and
> support upwards of tens of thousands of people. Like they want to
build this large town or small city in space. I have
> read articles where the proponents intend to pay for the construction
costs through tourism and such.
> Sounds like an ad for the Queen Mary or Princess Cruise Lines writ
large. "Pick up a good sized picturesque town, fold
> it to fit into a giant metal bubble, and sell tickets".

You might need to know that in the era in which those artists'
conceptions were created, it was anticipated that SPS construction from
space materials would be the economic justification for the construction
of space habitats. It was reasoned that such space workers might number
into the thousands, and that it might be possible to reduce worker
turnover if there was some reasonably pleasant place to live permanently
somewhere nearby. It was also realized that once you had put into place
all of the infrastructure for making SPS from space resources, making
space habitats from same would be much easier.

If you've read more recent work saying that this is going to instead be
done in support of tourism, I can only suppose that's because we have
had a small amount of real-world validation of orbital tourism, but have
yet to see even a small demonstrator SPS. I think tourism might
eventually result in Island One type habitats, but would see that being
a very lengthy, evolutionary process, as such habitats slowly descended
from space hotels in a series of incremental improvements.

> And finally, where would we be today if C. Columbus had waited for
something like the Queen Mary to embark on his
> explorations? The same thing that will happen if we wait for all the
technical difficulties surrounding placing
> habitation for tens of thousands in orbit.

There has been considerable talk on this maillist about much more modest
and nearer-term habitats (perhaps using a bolo geometry). Even back in
the day of the original High Frontier discussions, there were designs
for such "construction shacks" which used discarded Space Shuttle ETs as
their primary component.

Regards,

Mike Combs