Space Colony

[Moontanman]

Does anyone realize how weak the Astronauts will be after 7 monhs in Zero-Gravity??

 

They wouldn't have the strength to push a pencil...

 

 

That's why you need artificial gravity... 

[CraigD]

Does anyone realize how weak the Astronauts will be after 7 monhs in Zero-Gravity??

 

They wouldn't have the strength to push a pencil...

Not true. If believed by many, I’d say this rises to the status of a myth.

 

Although most present-day astronauts spend less than 200 days at a time in space, many have spent more in zero gravity, 10 more than 236 days, the record being 437 days. None we too weak to do easy work like pencil pushing, and many did long, hard EV work after more than 200 days in zero gravity.

 

To avoid losing too much muscle and bone mass, astronauts on long-duration flight (which, since the only manned missions lately are ISS “expeditions”, all of them are now) exercise a lot – on average, 2 hrs a day.

 

In summary, ISS astronauts on average lose little or no arm strength and muscle mass, but about 30% leg strength and 5% leg muscle mass.

 

Though inconsequential, perhaps the most dramatic body change caused by a typical ISS stay is that astronauts gain about 3% (around 2 inches) in height. They return to their original, pre-flight height after about 2 months back on Earth, with no ill effects.

 

That's why you need artificial gravity...

I agree.

 

Even though exercise in zero gravity is able to preserve the health of astronauts for periods approaching several years, there are long-term bad effects that only the exercise of constant acceleration on the entire body can address. No person has spent enough time in space to show directly what these are, but data suggests that the main bad effect is loss of bone mass and strength. Although there’s no hard data to suggest it, I expect that the characteristic “puffy face and skinny legs” (the visible effects of which lessen after a few weeks) due to fluid redistribution in zero gravity may have long-term bad effects.

 

Nearly all sensible, reality-based plans for artificial gravity in space – capsules separated by a cable, Stanford Toruses, O’Neil Cylinders, etc. – call for some sort of centrifuge. I find it remarkable that, for all this optimism, there has been little study of possible long-term issues with living in centrifuge of various diameters. With the exception of a very brief, low-force experiment during the Gemini program, no human-bearing centrifuge has yet been tested in space.

 

Sources: Wikipedia articles List of International Space Station expeditions, list of spaceflight records and Reduced muscle mass, strength and performance in space, Space.com article The Human Body in Space: 6 Weird Facts

[Moontanman]

The torus I am visualizing can be seen thusly, take a loop of string and twist it once so you have to connected loops. repeat this many times always each beside the other until you have a torus, this would be the suspension part, imagine a tube inside this torus of string, the strings represent carbon nano tube cables. When spun this structure should be quite strong, small ones could be made with kevlar, I think the shape lends it's self well to magnetic sails as well.. 

[Bullocks]

You might want to take a look at this list of free CAD programs. There are lots of others too, but I don't really play with them.

 

 

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works, :phones:

Buffy

My best bet is to assume you love physics :/

[Eclipse Now]

How do we get to space in the first place? I was surprised to read that Next Big Future does not support the idea of space elevators for the Earth.

 

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/09/japanese-construction-giant-obayashi.html

[CraigD]

How do we get to space in the first place? I was surprised to read that Next Big Future does not support the idea of space elevators for the Earth.

Nextbigfuture.com is just a 4-editor technology news-oriented blog, so I’m not surprised and don’t draw too much from their position on the wisdom of building an Earth-to-space elevator:

Nextbigfuture does not believe an earth based space elevator will be built. One on the moon or Mars would make sense. This does not. There are easier and cheaper ways to get into orbit with lower costs.

IMHO, there are so many material and large-scale engineering unknowns around the subject that position other than “let’s work to develop the required technologies, and see what become feasible” assume too much.

 

Obayusha’s announcement of plans to complete a space elevator by 2050 strike me as optimistic, but in this “let’s work and see” mode. I wish them success.

 

However, IMHO, Nextbigfuture skepticism about the feasibility of space elevator is good, in that it draws attention to space elevators not being “silver bullet” solutions compared to rockets. From basic mechanics and the rocket equations, we can find that the energy requires to use rockets to place vehicles in geostationary orbit using ordinary engines is not staggeringly greater – around a factor of 10 times – than for mechanically lifting them in a space elevator.

 

The practical key to getting lots of people and stuff into space isn’t energy efficiency, but reusability of costly components and time needed between uses. Space elevators achieve this by having practically no discarded components – all they need is maintenance materials and energy to power their elevators – and allowing continuous operation. Rockets that allow their engines and bodies to be reused without excessively costly and time-consuming maintenance – a major goal of companies like SpaceX – achieves nearly the same thing, though the rocket fuel and oxidizer is more expensive than the electricity a space elevator would presumably use, but as with its energy efficiency, the difference in cost is about a factor of 10.

 

The above focuses only on the cost side of the economics of getting lots of people and stuff into space. The other side of these economics is increasing the demand for doing so. At present, this demand is modest – flying commercial satellites, supplying the ISS, and infrequent scientific spacecraft. So the problem returns to the “how to pay for needing to have a lot of stuff in space” we discussed about a year ago, such as this post, where I speculated about business profit making “return on investment” possibilities.

 

The main driver of spaceflight and space colonization, is, I think, social and economic, not technical.

[Murga]

 

 

 

The main driver of spaceflight and space colonization, is, I think, social and economic, not technical.

 

 

Exactly.  There has to be some profit.  The current NASA idea is to go into orbit so we have somebody to send supplies to.  From what was read ten years ago, few if anyone even reads papers done in the ISS regarding research.  Is it/was it true?  The gist was that government operation looms large in doings. 

 

About the space elevator, one of the most interesting ideas I have read was from a poor source, a science magazine, where some one suggested a loophole of sorts around the current structural limitations.  Has it been mentioned already? The idea was to use very light interlocking superconducting coils which are not physically connected to each other.  Of course, those would need to be shielded, since low temperatures are required with current materials, but in a near or total vacuum or not nearly so difficult at low weights.  On the safe side, operations could mainly or normally happen at night. 

 

Transmission of source power is a sticky issue, but at least hypothetically the entire thing could be done on Earth and jacked up (one rung at a time) as are our guyline tower contructions at present day.   I have no quick answers for the initial 10km of heat sapping weather in lower regions, particularly in construction.  Wire cable of highest quality will support its own weight for 100km I recollect reading, so it could be tethered below 50km or so, especially if used mainly for bringing material down (asteroid material).  I remember reading that energy would have to be recaptured in order to cut electrical costs.  With a downward surplus, energy boosts to the super or not so super conducting magnets might be arranged. 

 

But as said, we are no where near this picture.  The way space research and exploration is seemingly being currently run, the situation should remain mere idle speculation for the immediate century. 

[Moontanman]

I think there is profit in space, a single 10 mile wide asteroid contains enough precious metals make every person on the planet a millionaire. But the real point is that very little has to be brought from the earth to space but manufactured goods or even purified metals could be brought to earth. Once an industrial presence is established in space colonies with artificial gravity will soon follow. 

 

Once colonies begin to be made I think it will take off with it's own economy and leave earth completely out of the loop. Establishing a presence in Jupiter's Lagrange asteroid groups would the place to start with both industrial and colonization efforts..   

Edited November 28, 2014 by Moontanman

[CraigD]

From what was read ten years ago, few if anyone even reads papers done in the ISS regarding research. Is it/was it true?

I think it’s safe to say that most ISS research is applicable to manned spaceflight – primarily threats to and ways to preserve astronaut health during long spaceflight, and testing manned spaceflight systems. Compared to any ground-based lab, the ISS doesn’t do many actual person-hours of science depending on crew size and mission planning, from 3 to 50 hrs/week (source: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2014-01-23/news/os-station-casis-science-20140116_1_international-space-station-nasa-administrator-charlie-bolden-top-science-official). This 2013 article by ISS chief scientist Julie Robinson gives her “top ten” pick, and of them, only two – a 2013 nanomaterial experiment, and #1 on her list, a 2002 drug-delivery experiment that lead to a substantial improvement in ground-based cancer medication manufacturing – strike me as having value outside of spaceflight and not being possible using a much less expensive unmanned spacecraft. This 2012 article notes that about 3000 papers were published from ISS research since it was manned in Nov 2000, compared to about 3 times as many papers from data from the unmanned 2001 NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which cost about $150,000,000, about 1/1000th the cost of the ISS to date.

 

So the ISS is primarily a manned spaceflight lab. IMHO, the problem is that there’re no certain near-future plans to use the learnings from this research for a major manned spaceflight, such as the most obvious one, a Mars landing, while most of these learnings were made 10 or more years ago. The ISS was built with the assumption of a manned Mars mission around the year 2010. Continuing to man it now is, I think, mostly a political concession and to bolster space agencies ‘organizational pride. However, as its current cost is only about $3,000,000,000/year, I don’t think this is money poorly spent.

 

About the space elevator, one of the most interesting ideas I have read was from a poor source, a science magazine, where some one suggested a loophole of sorts around the current structural limitations. Has it been mentioned already? The idea was to use very light interlocking superconducting coils which are not physically connected to each other.

I’d be curious to see that magazine article, Murga.

 

I’ve not seen the idea of “powered materials” except in science fiction, though these few SF imaginings are IMHO high-quality. These stories propose that a conductive (perhaps superconductive) material, such as fullerene carbon fiber, could have an electric current run through part of it, inducing a magnetic field many times stronger than the materials tensile strength. Such material could be used to make space elevators, aesthetic “impossible” structures such as tall thin spires and long thin bridges, and super-strong armor. The stories that explain the material in much detail propose a very compact, very high-power energy source, such as a matter-antimatter annihilation reactor.

 

For terrestrial space elevators, since present day and near-future materials such as fullerene fibers appear adequate, I doubt powered materials are likely. Controlling them and avoiding catastrophic failures would add unnecessary complexity and risk.

[Deepwater6]

http://www.space.com/27860-3d-printing-space-exploration.html

I would think NASA would be pouring more money into the cubesats and robots. If for no other reason but to limit some dangerous space walks.

Besides being way cool, the 3-D printing could be critical for long trips. The article refers to the cost it would save from less launches, and could reduce the mass of spare parts that would need to get up there. IMHO If they can make this work it would reduce the number of dockings.

Either for the ISS or a larger station that rotates for gravity, getting the docking right is serious and can be dangerous. Until we get much better at it, I think it would be wise to limit them however possible. 3-D printing could help with that.

[Murga]

 This 2012 article notes that about 3000 papers were published from ISS research since it was manned in Nov 2000, compared to about 3 times as many papers from data from the unmanned 2001 NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which cost about $150,000,000, about 1/1000th the cost of the ISS to date.. Continuing to man it now is, I think, mostly a political concession and to bolster space agencies ‘organizational pride. However, as its current cost is only about $3,000,000,000/year, I don’t think this is money poorly spent.

 

Gaah!   More confirmation of incompetence, unfortunately.  Have any of these administrators ever had a real job in the non government contract private sector?!?  When the first Shuttle Disaster happened, massive back pedaling and obvious criminal incompetence as shown by Yeager/Feynman et al, yet no one was fired.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report

 

About the Wilkinson Probe, bet those papers were +100x thoroughly read, raising stakes to 1:<300,000 ratio in cost efficiency.

 

>>I’d be curious to see that magazine article, Murga. I’ve not seen the idea of “powered materials” except in science fiction, though these few SF imaginings are IMHO high-quality. These stories propose that a conductive (perhaps superconductive) material, such as fullerene carbon fiber, could have an electric current run through part of it, inducing a magnetic field many times stronger than the materials tensile strength. Such material could be used to make space elevators, aesthetic “impossible” structures such as tall thin spires and long thin bridges, and super-strong armor. The stories that explain the material in much detail propose a very compact, very high-power energy source, such as a matter-antimatter annihilation reactor.

 

Me too, in seeing it again.  It was just a small column in that goofy magazine Omni, circa 1990, or within 5 years.  Some guy had the suggestion via a small sidebar feature, and as you seem to suggest there are SF take offs/origins of about the same. 

 

 

>>For terrestrial space elevators, since present day and near-future materials such as fullerene fibers appear adequate, I doubt powered materials are likely. Controlling them and avoiding catastrophic failures would add unnecessary complexity and risk.

 

Tethers might give some really serious competition (and of course are a way to put up space elevators).  One guy in San Jose or Los Gatos (CA) and his son also of the industry (on a personal visit 8 years ago) seemed to have some good ideas on space tethers, although the name/phone number is terra incognito in my files.  Here is an other interesting company in Seattle area instead:

 

http://www.tethers.com/index.html

 

But a very good assessment of yours, IMO, on space elevators. Thank you.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Murga

[Moontanman]

Is there enough carbon on our planet to make a space elevator? I think Nuclear rockets are a better way into space and once we get there all the resources we need are just waiting to be used. Once we get into space I think we will avoid gravity wells and a space elevator would become a dinosaur not long after it was built if not before... 

Edited November 29, 2014 by Moontanman

[CraigD]

I think there is profit in space, a single 10 mile wide asteroid contains enough precious metals make every person on the planet a millionaire. But the real point is that very little has to be brought from the earth to space but manufactured goods or even purified metals could be brought to earth. Once an industrial presence is established in space colonies with artificial gravity will soon follow.

I agree, but only barely, and with only a little confidence.

 

A venture might make a big profit from precious metals (such a gold and platinum) from an asteroid, but since the value of such things depends on their scarcity, the revenue they could generate would be constrained (see this 2006 post for more). A couple of companies – Planetary Resource and Deep Space Industries are working on this now, but both the technical and economic feasibility of these ventures are uncertain, as discussions such as in this 2013 qz.com article describe.

 

Assuming there is profit to be had, and engineers and financiers clever enough to make it, the critical question to me is whether the spaceflight involved will be manned or unmanned. Unmanned missions are much cheaper and increasingly able to do what once only manned missions could. So I don’t agree that industry in space will necessarily be followed by space colonies.

 

I want there to be ET colonies. As threads like this show, though, imagining how to cause them to happen is a exercise in of technical and socioeconomic prophecy, including lots of head scraching and naval gazing.

 

I’m drawn to searching for analogies in history, such as the several waves of colonization of the Americas from Europe. What caused those colonizations? A few rich people got richer, poor people got land, stay-at-home Europeans got new and cheaper goods, etc. None of this could have been done with robots, as they didn’t have them. Given that we do, which of those causes are applicable to colonizing space?

 

After mulling the question for an uncounted time, I come up with the practically tautological answer “because people who could wanted to”.

 

Historically colonists wanted to colonize because they found their lives bad where they were, and expected them to be better where they went. They weren’t the best and the brightest with “all the right stuff” – in many cases, they were worst and least wanted who were not bright enough to understand that they were as likely to find ruin and/or untimely death as often as their hopes. Regardless, colonization succeeded because they arrived and, eventually, survived.

 

I imagine colonization beyond Earth will be similar: requiring sound engineering, but also throngs of lucky fools. Watching “application” videos for the Mars One project, I find myself scoffing at the motley crew willing to spend their life’s saving on a one-way trip to Mars with only vague plans for the future, then I remember this, and my scoffing stops.

[Eclipse Now]

I’m drawn to searching for analogies in history, such as the several waves of colonization of the Americas from Europe. What caused those colonizations? A few rich people got richer, poor people got land, stay-at-home Europeans got new and cheaper goods, etc. None of this could have been done with robots, as they didn’t have them. Given that we do, which of those causes are applicable to colonizing space?

 

After mulling the question for an uncounted time, I come up with the practically tautological answer “because people who could wanted to”.

 

Historically colonists wanted to colonize because they found their lives bad where they were, and expected them to be better where they went. They weren’t the best and the brightest with “all the right stuff” – in many cases, they were worst and least wanted who were not bright enough to understand that they were as likely to find ruin and/or untimely death as often as their hopes. Regardless, colonization succeeded because they arrived and, eventually, survived.

 

I imagine colonization beyond Earth will be similar: requiring sound engineering, but also throngs of lucky fools. Watching “application” videos for the Mars One project, I find myself scoffing at the motley crew willing to spend their life’s saving on a one-way trip to Mars with only vague plans for the future, then I remember this, and my scoffing stops. 

 

Well said! And I also think that Mars will attract them more than some asteroid. I think the monkey in us feels a bit safer on a planet. It's a bit more like home than an asteroid spun up a bit. Asteroids can hypothetically 'run out' of resources, and have to do more 'space stuff' to move to another asteroid. The monkey in us may just be attracted to doing that one dangerous journey to get to Mars, and then everything a large and growing civilisation could require is there at our beck and call, whether burrowing down under for safety, spreading out croplands on the surface with large bubble tents, or slowly terraforming the surface. Or some mix of the three. It's all there. And you can just get in a car and drive.

[Moontanman]

Well said! And I also think that Mars will attract them more than some asteroid. I think the monkey in us feels a bit safer on a planet. It's a bit more like home than an asteroid spun up a bit. Asteroids can hypothetically 'run out' of resources, and have to do more 'space stuff' to move to another asteroid. The monkey in us may just be attracted to doing that one dangerous journey to get to Mars, and then everything a large and growing civilisation could require is there at our beck and call, whether burrowing down under for safety, spreading out croplands on the surface with large bubble tents, or slowly terraforming the surface. Or some mix of the three. It's all there. And you can just get in a car and drive.

 

 

I think maybe we have our wires crossed, no one is suggesting we live on asteroids, not enough gravity to keep humans healthy although a mega structure like encasing Ceres in a clear plastic ball so you can create an atmosphere inside is intriguing if for no other reason than releasing earth life there and seeing how evolution proceeds under such low gravity but with high pressure air.

 

But I digress the colonies i have been talking about would be a Torus spun to have gravity on the inside surface, provide lighting and you have an encased world that would resemble rolling up a valley and setting it in space. Such colonies could rendezvous with bodies of ices and rocks  to replenish their supplies every few centuries or to build a replica of themselves to create a new colony when the population gets too great or a faction wants to split off. 

 

Given nuclear fusion for power such colonies could exist in the ort cloud and kuiper belts completely independent of the earth and sun. The colonies could be moved around slowly via magnetic sails and since the colony is your home and not a destination the length of the trip would be as meaningless as living in an RV and traveling around, you are taking home with you. 

 

I think the Lagrange points of Jupiter would be a great place begin production of such colonies due to the huge amount of material in a small space, the asteroid belt is so sparsely populated that any one asteroid comes into human eyesight range of another asteroid maybe once ever few centuries on average.. Jupiter's Lagrange points are down right crowded by comparison... 

 

Planets by comparison are hostile places, Antarctica is by comparison a paradise but you see no intrepid colonists trying to live there..

 

There is the problems associated with gravity wells, why live in a hole that is mega difficult to climb out of when fertile flat plains are just waiting to be colonized? 

[Moontanman]

Come to think of it, sounds like a great idea for a science fiction show, building colonies in the wilds of space... 

[Eclipse Now]

Elon wants a fleet of shuttles flying back and forth between Earth and Mars, eventually building up to a fleet of 1000 ships. When they depart it will be "Kind of like Battlestar Galactica!"

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-speech-mars-plan

 

With this many ships eventually going to Mars Space X will have brought the cost down to a few hundred grand per passenger AND created a refuelling depot on Mars. Surely it would only take a couple ships to then leave Mars in the other direction, to mine the asteroid belt, and we'd have a truly space-faring civilisation able to colonise almost everywhere?