Re: New space settlement article

From: Mike Combs (mikecombs_at_nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti)
Date: 06/28/04 

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:18:56 -0500

"G EddieA95" <geddiea95@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040624143227.03855.00000338@mb-m19.aol.com...
>
> Unproven. Permanent body deterioration in low-g is a hypotheses, and one
we
> currently have no data either way on.

Which only means that we should be conservative in our assumptions rather
than optimistic.

Y'know, "Hope for the best, but plan for the worst."

> If we have space transportation capacity such that building of SPS becomes
> practical, no one needs to live on the moon for "years." Crews will be
> rotatable back to Earth before their bodies deteriorate.

But the O'Neill proposal was to engineer stations (not necessarily large,
Earth-like habitats) which provide 1-G of artificial gravity, so that
there's no need for short-duration rotations.

> And teleoperation
> will minimize the numbers of people required to far less than such as
would
> justify an O'Neill cylinder.

If teleoperation technology advances more rapidly over the next few decades
than it has over the last few, I'm sure it will contribute to declining
workforce requirements, at least in cislunar space. But I think the proper
argument is that if we ever get to where we are using space resources to
build SPS in the numbers needed, diverting a small amount of it to Island
One would actually be a relatively modest diversion.

Don't even talk about an O'Neill Cylinder at this stage. Look at it this
way. The first O'Neill Cylinder won't get built by Earth people. Not even
Earth people living in space. The first O'Neill Cylinder will get built by
a new space civilization which will get its start in far more modest
habitats. 

-- 
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."
   Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"

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