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Re: starship-design: We need habitats




In a message dated 6/10/97 2:08:23 PM, stk@sunherald.infi.net (kyle) wrote:

>Greetings fellow LIT members.
>
>We need some serious thought on the aspect of habitats. Once we get to
>Tau ceti, we
>are probably going to want to set up a habitat on the surface of Tceti
>I. After
>all, why risk a mission, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, to go
>to
>another star system if we aren't going to set up a colony there. As far
>as bio-
>-contaminants, well maybe. But think of this: the proteins (if any) are
>probably 
>different than ours, and thus probably won't have much of an effect on
>aliens (us).
>If there is a good atmosphere, we could use it to breath by filtering it
>before 
>pumping it into the colony. The atmosphere seems good: nitrogen, oxygen,
>co2, water vapor, etc. But as I said earlier: we NEED ATMOSPHERIC
>PRESSURE. If no one is willing
>to calculate this (or postulate it), maybe I should. I'd like to go
>explore the
>newly (1996) discovered planets orbiting 70 vir, 47uma, and rho CrB but
>theya are 
>40+ ly away. Respond whenever.
>
>			Kyle R. Mcallister


This is a hotly debated topic!  ;)  Unless you can move hundreds of thousands
of people (give or take a factor of ten) the colony couldn't be self
suficent.  So it would be dependant on that long thin suply line from Earth.
 Earth would be unlikely to pay the bills.  (It would raise mission costs and
complexity by orders of magnitude.)

WHY set up a colony?  Normally stable colonies are formed after we find
someplace worth staying at.  By def, we don't know of any reason to stay
there.

Why settle on the planet?  Resorces are far more common and access able in
space then on a planet.  The danger of  contamination is less.  You can
always build a earth like space colony.  You can't always do that on a
planet.  Besides theirs a whole star system to explore.  You can't strand all
your resources on one rock.

Kelly