Fwd: Re: starship-design: Hi, from a newbie

[Curtis Manges <clmanges@yahoo.com>]

--- Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
. I favor too 1960's to 1980's technology as a base
> standard.
> Take computers - they are mass market throw away products today. On
> a space station you may have 2000 people ( nice round number ) with
> 500 computers. 

Ben,

I think you've seriously underestimated the computer needs of an
extraterrestrial colony.
Going with your population assumption, I think that first, each
member of the colony will need access to their own computer, since,
by necessity, each colony member must likely be some sort of
technician. There's 2000 computers to start. Add to that a large
number of autonomous processors needed to run the various
life-support and mechanical needs of the station, and you'll want
some of these to be redundant for the critical stuff. Add some for
portable test equipment, possible traffic control, communications,
etc, etc. Then, if the colony is somewhere with an "outdoors" (Luna,
Mars, wherever), you'll need a few for exploration and resource
collection. 
I'm not going to guess at a total, but I'm quite sure that it will be
a lot higher than 500.
Standardize the parts that may need replacement, and keep a stash of
spares on hand, enough at least so as not to be forced into running
the station in a crisis mode. If the colony needs to expand, you can
ship up some more with the other needed imports.
The big downside of the standardization is that hardware upgrades
become an enormous headache.
What think ye?

Keep looking up,

Curtis

=====
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