Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Space Colony Art from the 1970s

publicdomainreview.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 135 posts

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#111

Post by justanegg »

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…

you could also build it in space over the course of year and land it on a place with lower gravity than earth easily.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#112

Post by m23khan »

to me, colonialization of other planets seem like alchemy of our times. Every basic item is missing in Mars and will people be willing to survive in domes and astronaut type suits for their entire lives? Then there is a matter of what type of meaningful work people will engage in? what type of education to give to kids? Which currency to pay them in? What nationality would they have? Are they a new country?

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#113

Post by marktangotango »

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…

There are definitely some effects like this, would make for interesting video gameplay as well, if someone were inclined. Like trampoline bounce to opposite side or catapults?

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#114

Post by douglaswlance »

I don't think it makes much sense for us to build earth-like environments in space. It totally negates the benefits of being in a zero-g environment.

I think it is more likely that our biology will be forced to adapt to space than the other way around. I can imagine a future where humans live in individual pods while hooked up to virtual reality systems that can simulate all the necessary needs of the person within the pod, while the pod traverses shared space near lagrange points to collect necessary resources. It'd be a sort of "cell" in a larger multi-cellular collective surrounding our local star; much like endosymbiosis lead to mitochondria when eukaryotes first evolved, humans will merge with machines to become space-faring cellular life.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#115

Post by dsfyu404ed »

jdavis703 wrote: post #65
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can order pizzas for employees?

Potentially... I vaguely remember my anti-corruption training, and the dollar limits for receiving gifts and meals were fairly low.

So work with the pizza place to get a special 95% discount then hand them cash "not related to the order". For something that's obviously a good faith contribution everyone involved will err toward the side of rubber stamping it as ok.

The rules are just a rule of thumb that we can apply evenly at scale to avoid corruption. When there's legitimately no corruption happening the rules get more flexible. If it ever becomes an issue HR will frown (because rules) but legal will apply the duck test and conclude that ~$10 pizza/person paid for by someone who doesn't need/want/isn't in a position to benefit from preferential treatment is not corruption.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#116

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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"…

>Could be as simple as having a really long and strong wire between two habitation modules

I.e. "the crane cable you would use to lift the module under normal, 1g, earthly circumstances"

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#117

Post by makerofspoons »

musha68k wrote: post #110
adrianN wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tog…

You are absolutely correct. We have absolutely no way to produce these fantasies without even further widespread environmental devastation. Think of all the metals that would need to be mined and carbon emitted to get this stuff in orbit. Even if we mine asteroids a colossal amount of resources will need to be spent on spacecraft and machinery to make that possible on a world already facing ecological collapse:

Insects may disappear by 2100: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/why-are-...

Phytoplankton has nearly halved in the oceans since 1950: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-pop...

Wildlife is becoming paralyzed and diving because of vitamin deficiencies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196476/

We have already knocked out the base of the food chains we depend on- we cannot consume our way out of this hole. The future of this species is already in question, we can't afford these fantasies.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#118

Post by kuhhk »

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 with a little extra shielding (lot's of water in the hull

What's the purpose of the water? If a micro-asteroid punctures the hull, does the water freeze to stop the leak?

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#119

Post by ajlburke »

matt-attack wrote: post #74

I’m almost positive one of those was from National Geographic’s Our Universe . When I was a kid I must have read it a hundred times. The drawings were truly awe inspiring. In fact just googling it and seeing the cover art brought back so many memories. A book could never mean as much again in this age.

One of the reasons I loved the Mass Effect games was that their design team had clearly been looking at these same pictures, especially when they built the Presidium.

As a kid, I would look at those pictures and imagine my life in the future looking like this. Instead, in the real future, I play video games where I can wander around these kinds of spaces virtually.

Re: Space Colony Art from the 1970s

#120

Post by zbentley »

kuhhk wrote: post #118
skriticos2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 with a little extra shielding (lot's of water in the hull What's the purpose of the water? If a micro-asteroid punctures the hull, does the water freeze to stop the leak?

Radiation shielding: http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/tff/radiation_shield.html
Post reply on HN