NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University, discovered that we can build gigantic spaceships, big enough to live in. These free-space settlements could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. In time, we may see millions of free-space settlements in our solar system alone. Building them, particularly the first one, is a monumental challenge.
Space settlements will be a place for ordinary people.
Presently, with few exceptions, only highly trained and carefully selected astronauts go to space. Space settlement needs inexpensive, safe launch systems to deliver thousands, perhaps millions, of people into orbit. If this seems unrealistic, note that a hundred and fifty years ago nobody had ever flown in an airplane, but today nearly 500 million people fly each year.
Some special groups might find space settlement particularly attractive: The handicapped could keep a settlement at zero-g to make wheelchairs and walkers unnecessary. Penal colonies might be created in orbit as they should be fairly escape proof. People who wish to experiment with very different social and political forms could get away from restrictive social norms.
Although some colonies may follow this model, it’s reasonable to expect that the vast majority of space colonists will be ordinary people. Indeed, eventually most people in space settlements will be born there, and some day they may vastly exceed Earth’s population. Based on the materials available, the human population in orbit could one day exceed ten trillion living in millions of space colonies with a combined living space hundreds of times the surface of the Earth.
A space settlement is a home in orbit.
Rather than live on the outside of a planet, settlers will live on the inside of gigantic spacecraft. Typical space settlement designs are roughly one half to a few kilometers across. A few designs are much larger.
Settlements must be air tight to hold a breathable atmosphere, and must rotate to provide psuedo-gravity. Thus, people stand on the inside of the hull.
Enormous amounts of matter, probably lunar soil at first, must cover the settlements to protect inhabitants from radiation. On Earth our atmosphere does this job, but space settlements need about five tons of matter covering every square meter of a colony’s hull to protect space settlers from cosmic rays and solar flares.
Each settlement must be an independent biosphere. All oxygen, water, wastes, and other materials must be recycled endlessly.
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