Space Colonies Revisited

Most writers about space colonisation assume we settle the Moon/planets, or else assume some sort of “warp drive” gets us beyond the solar system. That’s either not appealing or just wishful thinking. The only planets suitable for colonisation are Mars, and the Moon, both airless or close to it, and if there is water it is at desert levels. Spending a long time (let alone a lifetime) in low gravity does nasty things like osteoporosis. Most to the point, they are small places: they could not absorb a large number of colonists. As for faster than light, that may be restricted to a few Swiss neutrinos (but I doubt it).

The inspired conceptual breakthrough was made by Gerard O’Neill in the 70s, and had quite a run for a time. Don’t try to live on planetary surfaces, but build space habitats . Not little space stations, but potentially huge structures able to house and support millions (and thus with a large area of farmland). They would need to rotate to provide artifical gravity. Various shapes were proposed, including cylinders and toruses. An artist’s impression of a large cylinder colony is shown in the photo above. Mirrors would focus the sun’s rays to provide light and control heat.

Is it feasible, in the sense of construction, materials and life support? In terms of known modern science and possible materials, yes:

1. Raw materials need to be collected from space: both the gravity well of the earth and environmental issues prevent them being exported from Earth. Key raw materials are water (as such, or as hydrogen and oxygen), iron, aluminium, oxygen, silica, carbon, nitrogen. All of them are available in quantity, but in some cases as far away as the gas giants. This would require a fleet of unmanned cargo collectors, but that is just working capital; the energy required to move something in space is quite modest, with no gravity or air resistance, just the inertial mass of the vehicle itself.
2. You need a prodigious amount of energy to power such a colony but that should be no problem – the sun shines 24/7 at unclouded power out there, and nuclear waste is not an issue.
3. Cybernetic control systems are already well developed, let alone future improvements.
4. A strong magnetic field (an artificial Van Allen belt) plus shielding protects from cosmic rays and micrometeorites.

Because of the earth’s gravity well you need a less primitive and wasteful way of getting people off the earth than rockets, but there are other potential technologies such as the space elevator and Lofstrom loop.

Who wants to live in a rotating tin drum in the depths of space? It would strike many as bizarre, but the mileage that O’Neill’s idea created seems that many were inspired by it. After all, most of us live in highly artificial environments – not just the city, but even the countryside around me is man made. Why we should do so, and why we are no nearer setting up such colonies than forty years ago, another post,

Space colonies

This may seem a wacko idea, but it is the only way I can see that we can resolve a conundrum.

There are too many people on Earth, and even with declining birth rates the global population will continue to rise to around 9-10bn by mid century. Even without getting into debate about man made global warming, the combination of industrial society and large population is putting unbearable strain on the ecosystem. We are in the midst of another great extinction, caused by man.

Some worry that the primitives (including Muslims) take over by default as industrial populations collapse; economists worry that dependency ratios become unsustainable. I worry more that ageing societies become dull, conformist and uncreative. There is already IMO a decline in creativity, partly due to cultural exhaustion but also because of ageing population. A healthy society needs young people, and unless the death rate rises sharply (possible, as antibiotic resistance rises), that means a growing population. Transhumanism may give us young bodies, but not the flexibility and rebelliousness of young minds, and would in any case make the overpopulation worse.

When I was young we believed in progress, because the standards of living were changing before our eyes. If you are Chinese, that’s how you feel nowadays. We cannot go back to traditional society anyway, and it was pretty horrible. But above a certain level of income there is no correlation between contentment and income, and materialism becomes empty and corroding hedonism. We need a new non-hedonistic goal for progress. It may not solve the existential issue, but it gives something to do in the meantime.

Fast track back to the seventies, to the ideas of Gerard O’Neill – live in space colonies. There are no environmental constraints and space, and room for an infinite expansion of population leaving the Earth for tourism and as a nature reserve.

All well and good, but there is a huge gap between launching small payload satellites and getting billions of people into space, and if you can see any serious thinking or research on the following issues, well it has passed me by and please pass me to the sources:

- We need new technology, especially for the energy-intensive bits of getting out of the Earth’s gravity well, chemical rockets are far too primitive and wasteful. My own favourite would be space tether which is electrically conductive, where descending to earth vehicles are braked magnetically by generating electric current ( a bit like the regenerative brakes on an electric train) which powers a vehicle going up into space.
- All the resources needed to develop such colonies are available in huge quantities in the solar system. We cannot bring them from Earth, not only for obvious ecological reasons but also because of the energy penalty of the Earth’s gravity; it would take far less effort to send unmanned supply ships to collect water from Jupiter’s moons than to bring it from Earth.
- Cosmic rays and micrometeorites? Two metres of solid shielding will do the trick, and rotation provides artificial gravity

This requires huge technological leaps – but none of it unfeasible – but the smallest viable scale space colony is quite large, and needs a whole support system. We can envisage a space colony system (yes, run with private industry) but how to get there from here in incremental steps – it is not obvious. We need a process not one-off events.

Sending a man to the moon was a bit like Admiral Zheng He and his fleet sailing the globe in 1421: a bit of government show which led nowhere. We need the equivalent of European colonisation of the Americas (but no slaves growing sugar, please). There are no products from space that make the huge expense worthwhile. The only other motivator is an arms race, as in the 50s and 60s. China may indeed provide that, and a race to build a moon base first. Meanwhile one can see the goal, but no process to get there.