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[mainiac]

Is it just me, or does this sound like the setup for yet another Gundam series? Except in real life. Which would certainly not be a bad thing, apart from the colony drops and general bloodshed.

Never seen that gundam series.  I'm interested in O'Neil cylinders from a sociological and engineering standpoint, I think they would be a huge boon to human welfare.  From a giant robot standpoint I just don't see the point.  Yes, a zero G environment is good for making big things, but robots dont just need to be big, they need to be able to survive torque along a number of stress points that change as they move.  How does zero g help there?

Maniac: you just made me smile. And that really means something right now.

You made me smile.  It's groovy to know someone else understands the awesome of O'Neil cylinders.

[Heron TSG]

You made me smile.  It's groovy to know someone else understands the awesome of O'Neil cylinders.

I accidentally learned about them and a bunch of other space habitats while doing a report of Lagrangian points for physics. I think that if we could gather the materials to test it out, they would be fantastamazing. I'd live there.

[counting]

I wonder where's all the enthusiasm about space colonization went. It's everyone's dream in the 1970's, and somehow we lost it in the recent decade. From visions to plans and then crossing into 21th century, the wonderful future seems further away each day, and daily lives becomes how bad it could be tomorrow.

What I think is, although orbital space colonies are great in engineering stand points, they are not quite economically sound to this day. Any origination or government supporting such project will have to face the question of what's the usage and productiveness it can bring. And right now it's not yet an issue to squeeze more people on Earth. But dreams are the foundation of the future, and space colonization is indeed a wonderful dream. Hopefully in the next "tenties" in 22th century, they won't be just dreams still.

[Grek]

Once you're already in outer space, solar energy suddenly becomes several times more profitable. Build a big enough space station and you have energy than you can possibly use, freeing it up for you to sell to whoever wants cheap clean energy. Which, incidentally, is just about everyone.

[Aqizzar]

I wonder where's all the enthusiasm about space colonization went. It's everyone's dream in the 1970's, and somehow we lost it in the recent decade. From visions to plans and then crossing into 21th century, the wonderful future seems further away each day, and daily lives becomes how bad it could be tomorrow.

It was already dead by the 1970s, because of the 1960s.  Mainly because we got to the Moon and landed probes on Mars, and found out there's jack shit up there except a lot of sunlight.  All real interest for space colonization petered out rapidly once people figured out what a monumental challenge it would be for exactly zilch payoff.

If it's any consolation, The Jetsons was supposed to be the 2060s, and that's not too far down the road anymore.  Although even they practically never left Earth, the aliens just came to them...

[counting]

If you are interested in the original concept of space colonization in Gerard K. O'Neill's vision, you will see that it's exactly because there is excessive space "in space", hence it's viable to colonize the solar system. He imagine that the total solar system population inhabited in space will be near the asteroid belt, using the design of O'Neil cylinders (about 800 km2 inside the cylinder). And the estimate population sustainable in the space colonies is about 100 trillions, and some even suggested up to 5 quintillion.

And the raw materials are everywhere. The soil in Mars are suitable for agriculture. The minerals in asteroid belt. The water on other planets and satellites are not that scarce, even the abundant Helium-3 on the moon is also valuable if nuclear fusion is available commercially. The space colonies should be self sustain units of their own. But all these seem to be far gone from people's imagination now. (except for a few and in science fiction) And their visions died out. But all the technologies to construct them already existed (even 30 years ago). It's the amount of efforts and political environment seems to disappear gradually for the last 2 decades.

P.S. The abundance of energy is one thing. To transform or transfer the energy and using it to production is anther matter. You can't transport pure energy. Or we already done that with thousands of satellites in orbit. We need somehow receive the energy back on Earth. You can not plug a super long cable from orbit to the ground. Many crazy ideas had been proposed like using giant mirrors in space and beam down super concentrated light/microwaves back to earth, but they are not that appeal under current economy. Since it's much cheaper to build solar panels on the grounds with existing infrastructures. We are still thinking and limiting by the term of "earth-bound" economy, and if space colonization really works, then the resulting economy will be very different as of right now.

[Nadaka]

We have too many crap problems here on earth to worry about space colonization.

I'll start thinking about that again when we are not facing global economic and social collapse and we get off our ass and build a solar/nuclear solution to bring the rest of the world up to a western standard of living without the pollution problems of oil/coal.

[GlyphGryph]

"I don't have time for solutions! There are too many problems to solve!"

[Heron TSG]

The alt text.

[Nadaka]

"I don't have time for solutions! There are too many problems to solve!"

The initial cost of colonizing space isn't affordable today even if it pays off a billion fold over the course of a few thousand years.

If you want to get anywhere you need to overcome the things blocking your progress rather than just dream.

The number one block is the political and social bullshit going on in the world.

After that situation improves we can build out solar/nuclear power to elevate the standard of living and productivity of the worlds population.

Then we can either use massively hydrolysis to launch chemical rockets or invest in active structures like launch loops and rail guns to increase our launch capacity.

With that launch capacity, then we can do the things you are talking about.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

^
Hint: Those things do not just appear out of thin air. You actually have to make them by trying to. Like the trying you would get from an active space program.

It is messed up beyond reason that the US Armed Forces gets 600 Billion dollars a year, and NASA only gets 16 Billion. Those are not straight priorities.

We are never, ever going to leave Earth if we try to "100%" things down here before leaving. It will never happen. The kind of resources you need for that perfected of a civilization do not exist on our world alone.

[Nadaka]

You are right and it is fucked up that our priorities are so screwed. How do we fix that very real problem? By fixing the political and social bullshit going on in the world.

I am not saying we need to fix everything before we look out to space. I am saying we need to stave off collapse and regression right now, fix those political and social problems and fix our impending resource problems. Once that is done, then it becomes possible to make the investments required to achieve your goal.

[counting]

It's interesting to see that even during the time when it's "affordable" during the 90's economy, the enthusiasm already started to parish. But it's largely due to people focus their efforts on the arriving of digital era with the Internet and electronics (even lasting till today) back then. Plus another player that also has the capability to lunch into space collapsed at the same time. Then we generally got a somewhat protective and passive view of the future in last decade.

But at the mean time, on the other side of the world, the 3rd faction that can lunch into space appeared - China. And it's space program just started. (Even India is trying) With the growing capacity of its production power, I don't think China will sit idly in the coming years. (Even its growing rate slows down because of recession, it's still growing very fast). And I wonder why in sifi shows, like Firefly, tell the story of people speak Mandarin in the future of space.

[counting]

redundant post again , bad keyboard

[klingon13524]

P.S. The abundance of energy is one thing. To transform or transfer the energy and using it to production is anther matter. You can't transport pure energy.

I went to a Star Trek convention today (Yayzzz!!!) and this NASA guy had a booth over there. I overheard him saying something about beaming energy via microwave or something. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just quoting someone with a laminated ID card.