How a Giant Space Habitat could be built incrementally and accumulate from village to nation.

[Ophiolite]

The post was directed properly at the OP and not at you in any way.
Today at 11:49 AM#14

The post immediately followed one in which I responded to one of their posts. No mention was made of the OP. The reasonable conclusion is that it was directed to me. At best it was ambiguous and, as such, it cannot be accurately described as being "directed properly".

However, the subject of the OP is an interesting one. My further participation in this thread will be limited to that and not pointless squabbles. If you wish to debate it further you can pm me.

 

[eclipsenow]

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Where did I somehow claim that these giant space habitats will deal with sin? Just quote me that paragraph? What you say is true - but just sneering a human accomplishments is not the answer. I used to do it - and frankly - it's a bad witness.
We are also made in the image of God.
There is also a lot to celebrate about being human, and human accomplishments.
We have sentience and the ability to relate to each other as persons.
We have the scientific method - and I'm not a scientist but boy do I admire those guys and girls who can study all that data and extract the noise and come up with a better understanding of reality.

So yes, we're sinners. But yes, we're also made in the image of God. And I for one THANK GOD on at least a weekly basis for the scientists that developed a vaccine so we can reduce the harm of this pandemic, for the inventors that gave us the modern world, and for those inventors and engineers that might brainstorm up our future world.

Let's do a hypothetical. Imagine a computer science class back in the 80's that predicted the wonders of communicating over the internet, and one of your forebears sat in that class. Imagine they just tut-tutted and quoted your "heart is deceitful" verse - and everyone around them just winced. Now flash forward to today - and here you are quoting that verse at us over this same tut-tutted technology. What did the original tut-tut achieve? Did it stop the internet, or brainstorm how to deal with the dark sides of the internet. No. It basically was just a Debbie-downer.

Now flash forward to one of these O'Neill Cylinders being finished, and tens of thousands of people have already moved in. They hold a big assembly and release news feeds that introduce a new vat-grown beef factory that will be built in one of the rings. It's a new super-food that doesn't hurt any animals and tastes great! Your theological descendent there tut-tutts and says,

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can know it?"​

Someone with the latest coolest Apple-eye implants records you, and immediately sends the feed out to the habnet (habitat internet) and a thousands of comments on the blogfeed all accumulate to demand, "Where's your appreciation of God's gift of sentience to the human race - and what's the point of being such a downer in celebratory moments like this!?" The point is that just tut-tutting doesn't actually accomplish anything, or demonstrate any insight about the coming technological changes.

The Bible is the book of God's words - but the universe is the book of God's works. How about glorifying God and demonstrating some curiosity and wonder in the great effort to go study his works?

I think you would gain from reading "Unnatural Enemies" by my friend and (sometimes client), Dr Kirsten Birkett.

https://www.amazon.com/Unnatural-Enemies-Introduction-Science-Christianity/dp/1876326018

 

[Semper-Fi]

Where did I somehow claim that these giant space habitats will deal with sin?

Where did I say that [you did] ?

 

[Ophiolite]

@eclipsenow Three points, two serious, one lighthearted.

• Apologies for partially derailing your thread.
• In regard to the source of CHON, we might be better to consider comets rather than asteroids. The resource should be much richer, the problem would be the much higher delta-v.
• Since phosphorous is also an essential and is sometime included along with CHON, I can't help regretting that nitrogen wasn't called mitrogen, then we could gather CHOMP. A fitting acronym for something we would turn into meals!

 

[eclipsenow]

@eclipsenow Three points, two serious, one lighthearted.

• Apologies for partially derailing your thread.
• In regard to the source of CHON, we might be better to consider comets rather than asteroids. The resource should be much richer, the problem would be the much higher delta-v.
• Since phosphorous is also an essential and is sometime included along with CHON, I can't help regretting that nitrogen wasn't called mitrogen, then we could gather CHOMP. A fitting acronym for something we would turn into meals!

Why are comets more diverse in ingredients? There are a whole slew of types of asteroid. Also, I love CHOMP! I hear you.

 

[eclipsenow]

Where did I say that [you did] ?

What was your point in your quote then? How is it relevant?
In choosing to remind me that the human heart is deceitful, it's like you were attacking this technology with some kind of vague appeal to the fact that it won't deal with the human heart. I never said such habitats would be utopian, or deal with human greed, or anything like that. Just different places to live. Why were you such a Debbie-Downer? I'm struggling to find some relevance.

 

[Shemjaza]

Sure the original fleets of Starships going out to mine these rocks would be dependent on dried foods from back home. But there's CHON in those asteroids - Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. That can be mined and with enough solar power or even fusion if we have it by then, they'll be able to grow all the food they need. In dirt, that they increasingly make themselves. And these crops will have the perfect, tailor made climate, water, etc and be vastly more productive than anything out on a farm here on earth.

THEN there's futuristic stuff like this - which we should get an answer on in a few years.

Have you heard of Ferming? Think of it as electric food that bypasses photosynthesis. Electricity splits water and feeds hydrogen to bacteria - with a few fertilisers. Here's George Monbiot eating a pancake made from the stuff. Lab-grown food is about to destroy farming – and save the planet | George Monbiot They claim it will scale up to grow protein cheaper than soybeans by 2025, and that it will cook all the proteins and fats and carbs we need, and even arrive in different flavours. They want to cook up an alternative kind of fish-finger with omega-3's, or something like a chicken nugget. It could replace livestock and wheat and corn farms. All that's required are much smaller gardens for fruit and veg and herbs and spices for flavour and texture woven into this factory stuff. It could be the biggest jump in human food since we invented farming 10,000 years ago! Solar Foods - Wikipedia
The Chinese are working on another route - a chemical way to cook up sugary starches used for both food and cardboard etc. In keeping with the "Ferming" above, I call this one "Starching".

They sound like some gifts from Science Fiction. Worth keeping an eye on!

Here's a video of Ferming products.

If it can be mass produced in space and turned into yummy meat-pattie alternatives, or even just all the high protein pasta they need, imagine what it could do for world hunger here on earth?

Most long term plans include growing plants in space.

Few dogs or cats yet.

It's all super cool and I hope it can get to the point of self sufficiency without abandoning the stability and security of the billions of people who will still be on the Earth.

(I also hope that space technology will be cheap and common place enough that I'll be able to afford to go there.)

 

[eclipsenow]

It's all super cool and I hope it can get to the point of self sufficiency without abandoning the stability and security of the billions of people who will still be on the Earth.

(I also hope that space technology will be cheap and common place enough that I'll be able to afford to go there.)

I'm imagining it will be career stuff for a long time, with mining corporations guaranteeing supply lines to major tech firms back here on Earth. But eventually - God willing - we could see Belters trading with Martians and Earth. And if they build an orbital ring, then access to space could become dirt cheap.

 

[SkyWriting]

It's all super cool and I hope it can get to the point of self sufficiency without abandoning the stability and security of the billions of people who will still be on the Earth.

(I also hope that space technology will be cheap and common place enough that I'll be able to afford to go there.)

I don't agree. I think it a waste.

 

[eclipsenow]

I don't agree. I think it a waste.

Isn't it dumb to spend money colonising space and Mars when there are problems here on Earth? To me this would be like Columbus era Europeans saying it was dumb to spend money colonising the Americas when there were enough problems back in Europe. Psyche alone has enough platinum and gold to fund itself for thousands of years, let alone the rare earth's we desperately need to be independent of the Chinese who supply about 80% of the rare earth markets. We need rare earth's for everything from our electronics to our energy systems.

I think not going out and starting to mine Psyche would be a waste. This O'Neill Cylinder is just looking at what happens several generations later. Psyche might start off as a few SpaceX Starships mining rocks in zero g. But just as some little gold fields in the western America's eventually turned into Silicon Valley and Hollywood - who knows what Psyche's little mine might turn into?

 

[Shemjaza]

I don't agree. I think it a waste.

Does that apply to all space technology, or just ordinary people wanting to experience it?

 

[Ophiolite]

Why are comets more diverse in ingredients? There are a whole slew of types of asteroid.

Comets are largely composed of volatiles - i.e. CHON. While some asteroids have some volatiles I know of none that have the volume and diversity of comets. If you have evidence to the contrary I would be very keen to see it.

You may argue that despite the lower concentration of volatiles on asteroids there are some and the available volume compared with our needs (at least initially) is more than adequate. Moreover, delta V would render those asteroids much more accessible than comets. Also, as you have pointed out, the asteroids contain an abundant of important mineral resources from the commonplace like iron, to the less abundant rare Earths. (I would counter by pointing out these are also likely available on some/many/most comets.)

At that point our contrasting views become mere opinion. We would need to dig down into compositional details, structure and orbital mechanics, with some of the first two imperfectly known. This is beyond me. Perhaps some researcher out there has done the work for us.

I don't agree. I think it a waste.

Fortunately technical progress has never been halted by the nay-sayers and stay-at-homes; only unnecessarily delayed.

 

[keith99]

Isn't it dumb to spend money colonising space and Mars when there are problems here on Earth? To me this would be like Columbus era Europeans saying it was dumb to spend money colonising the Americas when there were enough problems back in Europe. Psyche alone has enough platinum and gold to fund itself for thousands of years, let alone the rare earth's we desperately need to be independent of the Chinese who supply about 80% of the rare earth markets. We need rare earth's for everything from our electronics to our energy systems.

I think not going out and starting to mine Psyche would be a waste. This O'Neill Cylinder is just looking at what happens several generations later. Psyche might start off as a few SpaceX Starships mining rocks in zero g. But just as some little gold fields in the western America's eventually turned into Silicon Valley and Hollywood - who knows what Psyche's little mine might turn into?

I think a better analogy would be saying there is plenty of work in Boston, why would anyone go out West to trap and trade with the natives.

So in a sense trying to build colonies is a waste and prone to failure. Huge upfront costs and little return. Unlike mining ventures which have huge (but not nearly as huge) upfront costs and gigantic returns.

Of course once there were enough trappers out West, trading posts popped up and some of those grew into towns. The same should happen in space. The first 'trading posts' will be for refueling. And perhaps quite unlike the Wild West in out past that will mean refining the fuel and the same for valuable raw materials sent back to Earth. Once started, manufacturing in space has some huge advantages. But that is insanely expensive if the raw materials come from Earth. Dealing with a gravity well costs.

 

[Petros2015]

Gerbils trying to run on wheels in zero-g would be hilarious.
I'd watch that for a $.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

They're doing something similar in Saudi Arabia with the 'Line' so it remains to be seen how successful that is.

I can't personally imagine living in something like that willingly, even in a desert, far less in space with little chance of escape.

 

[Shemjaza]

They're doing something similar in Saudi Arabia with the 'Line' so it remains to be seen how successful that is.

I can't personally imagine living in something like that willingly, even in a desert, far less in space with little chance of escape.

I think you've found the justification... the "worker" class in that structure, if it even gets built, will be at the total mercy of the owners.

 

[eclipsenow]

They're doing something similar in Saudi Arabia with the 'Line' so it remains to be seen how successful that is.

I can't personally imagine living in something like that willingly, even in a desert, far less in space with little chance of escape.

I'm with you! I'm an extrovert - I need people to make a fool of myself around and get my energy. (Bit of an attention seeker.) I imagine the first moon colony will have a few people and a lot of robots. I'm not assuming human level AI here (AGI) - I'm assuming the robots are actually piloted by remote by people back here on earth. The light-lag is only just over a second, so that's possible. Anyway, what could start all this off is fleets of tele-operated robots on the moon building stuff. At first, maybe they're building fuel - as you suggested. Fire it down a maglev railgun back to Earth Orbit for a SpaceX starship. The maglev railgun is a super-cheap launch compared to Earth because (so the physicists tell me - I'm a humanities guy - not engineer) 1/6th the gravity is 1/24th the energy to launch. Which means solar-powered electric launching! Talk about a solar-powered "EV"!

What if those robots become very 'smart' AI? More like droids? Would they be able to make solar panels cheap enough on the moon that they can fire them back to Earth Orbit to run PowerSats that beam BASELOAD reliable solar down to earth? There's a way for space to get into the $10 TRILLION a year energy business. That might fund more moon infrastructure.

The "worker" in this situation is a smart droid. But if this is happening on the moon, then it's happening on earth as well. We're practically talking about a potential post-scarcity civilisation. If droids on earth can do the same trick practically for free, then they can build so much solar power on earth it overcomes the limitations of night time and winter. Overbuild is already modelled into today's renewable plans to cut storage costs. Droids doing it for free could cover all the world's fresh water reservoirs for 10 TIMES the electricity we use today, slow evaporation of our precious fresh water and give us abundant power without using ANY land.

So in this case, why would we go to the moon? Or, indeed, build O'Neil colonies from the moon and shoot them into space bit by bit?
One answer: land! We'd be building real estate.