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Space Colony Art from the 1970s

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Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#101

Post by alex_duf »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #79

Loved the space colony with the hang glider. That one caused me to consider a 2001-style rotating space station — would it be possible to ride your bike counter to the rotation of the wheel and cancel the centripetal force? I reasoned that you could but that your direction of travel, tangential to the inner surface of the wheel, would still keep you "grounded". A simple ramp though should allow you to launch yourself…

No I think you nailed it. It all depends on the rotation speed but in principle it should be possible to do that.

That can either be seen as a flaw or as a feature depending on which side you look at it.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#102

Post by tomp »

sktrdie wrote: post #13

We are so driven by settling other planets, which of course I think we should do, that we forget that space habitats might be a more economical and also healthier first step into space. Apart from the ones depicted in these images I'm more in favour with starting with cheaper techniques where we could wire up an initial station to a wire/tether, and put a weight (or another small station) at the other end, have them…

I agree, except for the availability of resources, a space station makes much more sense than a planetary colony. In addition, all stations depicted are highly sci-fi - a realistic station would have to be modular, to prevent catastrophic failure if anything goes wrong (i.e. at most one module is lost, all the air in the whole station).

The up-front costs are way bigger, because you have to manufacture a reinforced floor (which, in case of a planetary colony, is the planet itself) and spin up the station (to provide "gravity"). But operational costs should be much lower, because there is 0 delta-v to get to and from the station (except syncing orbits, which you need to do with a planet as well). Start with two modules tethered in spin, then add additional ones gradually.

If we transport the materials from Earth, the cost of initial material is similar to settling on a planet. Once we develop technology for off-world manufacturing, you can literally fly your manufacturing plant to an asteroid, build the station there (with plenty of resources available) and then reposition it however you want.

The only kinds of planets that it makes sense to settle, is ones with a magnetosphere - and even that only until we develop other ways of shielding (there are companies working on that - e.g. Talos http://spacetalos.com/ )

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#103

Post by tomp »

kakarot wrote: post #68
sktrdie wrote: post #13

We are so driven by settling other planets, which of course I think we should do, that we forget that space habitats might be a more economical and also healthier first step into space. Apart from the ones depicted in these images I'm more in favour with starting with cheaper techniques where we could wire up an initial station to a wire/tether, and put a weight (or another small station) at the other end, have them…

From what I understand, a structure needs to be quite massive to get meaningful gravity from a rotating hull unless you attempt to approach ludicrously unsafe angular velocity which would make repair / docking a big challenge. In The Expanse , Ceres station was spun up over many, many years and still only achieved about 1/3G. Not to use a fictional universe as a basis for science but afaik they at least tried to do t…

I think it doesn't need to be massive, it just needs to have massive radius. Could be as simple as having a really long and strong wire between two habitation modules. And you can start small (low distance, slow spin, little gravity) and increase gradually.

Expanse is neat, but spinning asteroids isn't realistic. The idea is that the acceleration at the surface of Ceres is 1/3g, pointing outwards (i.e. you fall "out" into space). That would imply that the ground/rocks etc literally floats away in space. Unless the surface is structurally strong enough to resist that (unlikely with most asteroids, many of which are literally rubble piles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubble_pile ) the whole things would just disintegrate.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#104

Post by tomp »

musha68k wrote: post #91
marktangotango wrote: post #9

Some of these arise from of Gerard O’Neill work on space colonies. I saw these in National Geographic in the late 70s they were hugely inspirational to me. Note while Musk advocates settling Mars Bezos has indicated a preference for space colonies such as O’Neills. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

Dreams of Elysian Fields. None of these Arks are going to support billions.

Unless we terraform a planet, we'll need domes (artificial habitats with roofs filled with air) anyways. The difference between a planetary and space settlement is then just the (reinforced) floor, and you gain having 0 delta-v launch costs.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#105

Post by emiliobumachar »

ido wrote: post #94
lxmorj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to figure out how effective solar power would be at the height you'd put a floating city. You're closer to the sun than Earth, much higher than Earth's surface, but in a very dense atmosphere...

If atmospheric pressure at that height is similar to earth's at sea-level, wouldn't we expect similar levels of light blocking by the atmosphere as well?

Possibly. But if there are permanent clouds above, the whole idea falls flat.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#106

Post by lmm »

tomp wrote: post #104
musha68k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dreams of Elysian Fields. None of these Arks are going to support billions.

Unless we terraform a planet, we'll need domes (artificial habitats with roofs filled with air) anyways. The difference between a planetary and space settlement is then just the (reinforced) floor, and you gain having 0 delta-v launch costs.

> The difference between a planetary and space settlement is then just the (reinforced) floor, and you gain having 0 delta-v launch costs.

Anywhere intended for long-term habitation needs to be surrounded by 5m of metal or 10m of dirt (or a proper magnetosphere), and even a small amount of gravity can make life a lot more convenient in terms of having an up and down direction, not having to sleep next to a fan etc.

To my mind somewhere like Phobos makes the most sense for the first space colonies - enough dirt available to build things, not enough delta-v cost to matter.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#108

Post by z3phyr »

skriticos2 wrote: post #19
sktrdie wrote: post #13

We are so driven by settling other planets, which of course I think we should do, that we forget that space habitats might be a more economical and also healthier first step into space. Apart from the ones depicted in these images I'm more in favour with starting with cheaper techniques where we could wire up an initial station to a wire/tether, and put a weight (or another small station) at the other end, have them…

My thoughts exactly. Especially since it's much easier to simulate 1 gravity in space with rotating space stations. (You live long enough on Mars/Moon/etc., you are not coming back without being crushed). The stations would need to be rather large, but that's just an engineering and motivation problem. But with a little extra shielding (lot's of water in the hull - could be obtained from asteroids) they'd be very use…

> but that's just an engineering and motivation problem

Its a feasibility problem mostly.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#109

Post by kakarot »

tomp wrote: post #103
kakarot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, a structure needs to be quite massive to get meaningful gravity from a rotating hull unless you attempt to approach ludicrously unsafe angular velocity which would make repair / docking a big challenge. In The Expanse , Ceres station was spun up over many, many years and still only achieved about 1/3G. Not to use a fictional universe as a basis for science but afaik they at least tried to do t…

I think it doesn't need to be massive, it just needs to have massive radius. Could be as simple as having a really long and strong wire between two habitation modules. And you can start small (low distance, slow spin, little gravity) and increase gradually. Expanse is neat, but spinning asteroids isn't realistic. The idea is that the acceleration at the surface of Ceres is 1/3g, pointing outwards (i.e. you fall "out"…

Very interesting point about the wire. Seems like a great idea and definitely worth exploring, but imagine if that wire got cut ;)

> but spinning asteroids isn't realistic

Ceres isn't an asteroid. It's a dwarf planet. It's not a pile of rubble. It's big enough to be round from its own gravity. The only object in the asteroid belt with that status, actually.

> That would imply that the ground/rocks etc literally floats away in space

Yea, but they considered that and planned accordingly. The entire station is underground and the surface is heavily reinforced.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#110

Post by musha68k »

adrianN wrote: post #97
musha68k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dreams of Elysian Fields. None of these Arks are going to support billions.

If you keep building more they'll eventually house billions.

I remember the painfully slow loading times as well as the excitement over these classic illustration scans back in the 90s.

IMHO though we live in a "post scifi" age now (2019!) and should rather discard most of the mainstream utopian/dystopian fantasies already. At least until we manage to envision some pragmatic solutions to the very real and pressing problems we have on this planet right now.

We need to work together if we want to even have a slight chance to survive the next couple of decades collectively. We need some genuinely new utopian thinking if we want us all to survive.

Most of these billionaire "backup" plans as well as middle class "prepper" movements are dangerous distractions (and unlikely to "work out" for the cohorts pushing for them anyways).

If we like it or not we are in this together.

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