Comments on: Some Deep Space Firsts to Look Forward to in 2015 https://techsomogro.com/space-firsts-2015/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=space-firsts-2015 Science, Technology and the Future Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:17:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 By: lenrosen4 https://techsomogro.com/space-firsts-2015/#comment-14046 Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:17:00 +0000 http://www.21stcentech.com/?p=16233#comment-14046 Allen Gage. I have tweeted your reply to this posting. Allen, I would love if you could turn this into a guest blog entry on the site if you are up to it.]]> In reply to Allen Gage.

I have tweeted your reply to this posting. Allen, I would love if you could turn this into a guest blog entry on the site if you are up to it.

]]> By: Allen Gage https://techsomogro.com/space-firsts-2015/#comment-14042 Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:27:00 +0000 http://www.21stcentech.com/?p=16233#comment-14042 Ceres itself will never be colonized by humans (gravity is too low), but if Ceres actually has the speculated oceans of surface water,it will become the main hub of construction for human space habitats and distant planetary exploration vessels. For all practical purposes, this huge mass of water is already in space with more kinetic energy than it would have were it in Earth orbit.

Sustained human existence requires several factors that are available on Earth, but rare in space: Atmospheric oxygen for respiration, water for biological process, gravity between 0.8 and 1.1 g, and shielding from both radiation and meteorites.

If form is to follow function, practical space habitats or ships for humans must take the form of giant rotating hollow wheels. The rotation supplies the essential artificial gravity. The giant size diminishes Coriolis effects. Only robots working with asteroid materials can produce such structures. One can envision a 1,200 foot diameter space habitat in the asteroid belt supplied with an atmosphere and biotic system derived from the water of Ceres. Millions of tons of “concrete” made from asteroid sand/pebbles and frozen water would provide the shielding. Since propulsion in vacuum depends on expulsion of reaction mass, all space propulsion is limited by
available reaction mass. The water of Ceres could supply inexhaustible reaction mass, so a giant spinning nuclear-powered hollow donut habitat would also be a comfortable interplanetary spaceship that could range anywhere in the solar system and even venture out into and beyond the Ort Cloud. There is no practical limit on how many large wheel ships robots could construct from asteroid belt material. Over several centuries, thousands of these wheel habitat/ships might be assembled by robots in space near Ceres, and eventually all of mankind that wants to leave Earth and livein an artificial space colony would have someplace to go.

These large wheel ships could in principle venture into interstellar space and millions of generations latter approach nearby stars. Then the first order of business would be to locate a water-rich Ceres type body and replenish the ship’s reaction mass and repair shield erosion.

While such an interstellar ship might leave the Sol planetary system with a crew of modern humans and their AI robots, what would eventually arrive at another star some millions of years latter would not likely bear much resemblance to humanity. Such a voyage would amount mostly to a very inefficient form of cosmological panspermia.

I’m guessing the first of many asteroid belt wheel-ships to follow will begin construction in the late 2040s.

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