Added: 1 year ago
From: astrophonix
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  • too wasteful in regards to ressources, instead of sprinkles and videoscreens either create a new atmosphere with currents or scrap the whole "rain and earthlike sky" thing and offer a spaceview or somin until we find a way to better recyle water and find a better energy source

  • not very efficient design to be honest, the other three that you mention before is much more plausible and cheaper. If i want to live in space, why would i want it to be exactly like earth?

  • Would those smaller domes be used for habitation? Stating that they would have lighter gravity wouldnt make them an ideal choice for living there. But what may be a good idea is industrial applications. Perhaps mined materials from Luna or the asteroid belt could be transported there for processing and manufacture and then the product deployed to Earth. Such potent industries would be mineral extraction, microgravity construction of electronics, and Helium-3 extraction for fusion plants.

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  • I like it. The only objection I have would be the flat base. That would make each dome feel like a big hill. They would have to be concave, so that you always feel like you where standing on flat ground. Plus that way you could look across a "Valley" and see other towns etc. If it was flat, all the buildings and everything around the edge would not only experience a slightly stronger "Gravity", but would have to be built at an angle with reference to the ground.

  • @gizmoguyar A good point, but I think the difference in gravity from the centre to the rim of each dome would be undetectable to the inhabitants, being in the order of 1g at the centre and 0.95 g at the rim, with each dome being 800 metres in diameter it would be very difficult to feel the change as you walked across, and for larger domes the difference would be even less noticable.

  • @astrophonix Wouldn't smaller domes with reference to the radius be less noticeable? Although I guess you're right, the differences would be negligible.

  • This is interesting. However, before even thinking of projects such as terraforming planets or building space habitats, we must first take proper care of our natural habitat, the Earth, by evolving into a society that is free from all the erroneous values and the abhorrent behaviors that shape our current one and divide humanity, otherwise it will not work.

  • @RussianBoyDAN I fear the human race will not get the picture until something devastating happens. Thats why it is important that people begin to think about this now. We can't wait until people brighten up.

  • I dunno. Millions of tons cantilevered like that...?

    Seems like it would stretch the limits even with nano tubes.

  • I'm not sure we have materials strong enough for this.

  • @950horsepower Carbon nanotubes, strnger and lighter than steel, will be easily strong enough.

  • So basically you don't like seeing people walking upside down over your head?

    I wouldn't really mind.

  • @Shonenut213 All those non sciency people who say the LHC will create black holes will be so afraid that stuff is going to fall on them from the other side of the "World."

  • Might work - but doesn't it waste building materials? This way you should better create an 'onion layered' sphere.

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  • Two possible problems with that:

    If you spin all the layers at the same angular speed, you will get less than 1G at the surface of the smaller spheres and prolonged inhabitation of those spheres would cause humans various development problems, bone problems etc.

    If you want to spin each sphere separately so that all of them provide 1G, you need a complicated and malfunction-prone mechanism, plus some people will still get nauseous at angular speeds above a certain limit, despite the 1G.

  • I think this is a fantastic idea. Not so much that it mimics an Earth like environment for peoples mental stability, but for plant life. I'm not a fan on the video screen concept, but the sun moving across the dome would surely be more natural for the purpose of photosynthesis. Also, having different domes for different environments is a great idea. You could have some to emulate being closer to the equator and some further away, it would make animal life within the domes more natural for them.

  • I must ask, What's the point of making the innards look just like the surface of Earth? Surely the point of going to all that expense will be to have something we don't already have.

  • @qed100 Some space colonists may prefer this arrangement to the circular landscapes of the torus, sphere and cylinder, and it should be more familiar for animal life such as birds to navigate around an earthlike environment.

  • @astrophonix But why not just let them stay here on Earth?

  • @qed100 Most people will stay on Earth, but if we ALL stay on earth we will certainly become extinct, it's just a matter of time before a big asteroid or comet hits us again and this time it could inadvertantly start a nuclear war as their trajectories are the same as incoming ICBMs. Many scientists such as Carl Sagan and Martin Rees have written about this, here is Stephen Hawking's view:

    watch?v=HZkyRl5IreM

  • @astrophonix I'm asking what the point is of colonists pretending that they're still back on Earth? Surely they will know exactly where they are and what their situation is. If human beings are so small-minded that we can't stomach not having Earth in every detail, then perhaps we, collectively, aren't up to the task of surviving anywhere else indefinitely.

  • @qed100 It's just so people, who know they're in space, have a familiar environment in which to live. It would be psychologically less disorientating than circular environments.

  • @astrophonix How do you know that? No one's had to do such a thing yet. In my experience, people are pretty adaptable to new environments. Ask anyone who's serving a life sentence in prison. Or, ask anyone who's spent a year or more in a small space station. What about the South Pole? The days and nights there are all whacky, and not a tree or patch of grass in sight. What really makes people comfortable is the healthy society of other people.

  • @qed100 If you can come up with any serious objections to this idea, be sure to let me know.

  • @astrophonix I asked a perfectly good question. I've got no problem to the whole idea of exploring the world. But it's the nature of exploration that one is introduced to the unfamiliar, and a broader appreciation of things. It's to be expected that leaving Earth will naturally place one in un-Earthly circumstances. It won't be for the overly sentimental.

  • @qed100 With this concept I was not interested in exploration but in colonisation as a means to survival, and it would be an alternative to the circular habitats already proposed. Having a beaded torus means it could be constructed in a modular way from regualr units and would, by virtue of not being one contnuous environment, allow for evacuation to adjacent domes if one failed catastrophically by a meteroid strike. As it is, all these habitats would be expensive, so the human race will perish.

  • @astrophonix I understand that; but it doesn't have any bearing on what I'm talking about. Why should people hardy enough to leave Earth expect to be coddled with a virtual Earth? What mystifies me are things such as a fake blue sky with a fake sky-crossing Sun and contrived rainfall... for the purpose of making it Earthlike in only a narrow, cosmetic way. But it won't be Earth, and anyone who can't handle that won't have the Right Stuff.

  • @qed100 It's a matter of choice. Those who want to explore could live on Mars, Callisto or Titan, those who like inside-out habitats can live in toroids, spheres or cylinders or if they want an earthlike environment, but without earthquakes, tsunmai or volcanoes, can live in carousels. It's all moot anyway, I firmly believe that the human race will finally destroy itself within a century as we simply cannot agree on anything, even how to survive, so it doesn't matter about these proposals.

  • @astrophonix Well, it occurs to me that if people disagree, it implies the freedom to do so, and that's not such a bad thing. It's a liberty which societies aboard small space colonies may not be able to afford.

  • I was thinking of space stations along the line of Omega in Mass Effect 2 (or something similar. I like seeing the darkness of space and unlimited stars in all the time, and be able to easily travel from station to station, though people could live on Habitat 2 and travel to such a station or vice versa. Variety's good.This triggers claustrophobia (sort of) and doesn't have that space-ish feel to it. Just a weird, genius floating world (not that it's bad. It's brilliant)

  • My only problem is that the gravity would pull you toward the center of the disk (if the ground is flat) given that centripetal force pulls you toward the center of rotation. For example, if you look at 2:50, at the point below the right most spoke, the "gravity" would effectively push you in the direction of the spoke, which is 60 degrees off of what would feel natural.

  • i love it

  • half a million people for the human race to survive?

    i guess battlestar galactaca was all lies :(

  • How would the individual plates be supported?

    The video shows cable like structures that probably aren't meant to be taken literally. Also, the ratio between supported mass and support structure seems unlikely. What stops the bottom falling out of each plate without involving huge support systems?

  • @Bra23we12 The cable-like structures are rigid hollow tubes that carry elevators and the whole thing would be constructed from super-strong materials like carbon nanofibre which is stronger and lighter than steel. It looks flimsy, but it is a space habitat where the lack of gravity and air friction makes such structures much more viable.

  • @astrophonix

    Oh...OK.

    Couple of points though.....The platforms are spun to provide gravity? Under whatever gravity is provided, the structure must support itself.

    Relinquishing the room provided by a band in favour of individual platforms seems to serve no purpose other than a horizon. This seems poor return for the problem of higher gravity at the leading and trailing edges........unless, of course, the structure was so enormous that such differences were unoticed.

  • First we need to bootstrap manufacturing in space as flying the component up will be too expensive. Once we have manufacturing plants in space (such as steel plants using solar energy and meteors as raw material) then manufacture of such large structure become feasible.

  • @astrophonix Now thats just negative. These things will happen ONLY when breakeven is passed by corporations working with space. Space will not be opened up by governments at all. It will be private enterprise. The first large space station in orbit will be 90% made up of private modules.

  • I like this, except for the flat bottom. This puts the edges of the modules further away from the axis of rotation than the center of the modules. Water at the center would naturally flow towards the edges.  Walking from the edge to the center would FEEL like walking uphill, but it would LOOK absolutely flat.

  • @SailorBarsoom Ah! But would it look flat? I think the brain would interpret the feeling of going up hill and would force the mind to see it as a hill with the far side as the top. The same for someone on the other side looking back.

  • Rather pointless. However the modular design is good. The first habbitats will have to start with just two pieces.

  • @astrophonix It's still an interesting design, and, giving it a little thought, Mars may be a place to look for soil and rock for landscaping space habitats. It may take some working to make it a "terran" substitute, but it would be better than cannibalizing valuable soil from Earth. As to it being "too expensive", if we were seriously looking at creating space habitats to house the excess human population or as a lifeboat for a dying planet; cost would be the least of our concerns.

  • @digital1970

    Soil would be a combination of Lunar dust and composting of agricultural leftovers, grass clippings, leaves, etc.

    Lunar dust works fine as a basis for soil, if the organic matter is added.

  • @SailorBarsoom Okay, I've read a report that says plants can be grown in "treated" lunar soil, but that they "can't really be considered as a food crop". Though they could be used to create compost that could be used to grow more reasonable crops. However, the time it would take to create enough compost to be used on any space habitat would be substantial. Regardless, my main concern was building the habitat environment as it is commonly imagined (grass, hills, ponds, streams, etc).

  • @digital1970

    There are ways to speed up composting, but yeah, it's still time-consuming. Composting would have to begin as soon as the first bit of construction on the habitat itself was started, if not before.

    Food crops could be grown hydroponically. Hills could be hollow. Grass will grow on a car hood, given a little fertilizer and a non-toxic glue.

  • The biggest question I have is, where are you going to get all the soil rock to build the landscapes? Taking it from the Earth seems counter productive.

  • Definitely more practical than an O'Neil cylinder. :¬)

  • MMMM giant Reese cups!

  • Great stuff!

  • i'm not a big fan of this idea but its pretty original!

  • Good stuff man! This is the future! I only wish i could live long enough to see something like it!

  • @mobius1234,

    Me too! :)

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