Orbital colonies thought experiment

[Spaceception]

Lets talk orbital colonies; actually, lets not talk, lets theorize!

Here's what I want you to do:

1 How will food be produced?

2 How will water be recycled?

3 How Big will it be? (The resources given would be 100x the mass of the solar system, and mostly iron and silicates)

4 How many will it hold initially, and how many will it hold max?

5 What will it orbit? A planet, moon, star, or black hole (Be specific on it's rough characteristics)? (No Galaxies, the resources needed would be way too big)

6 How would it be relevant to the society that builds it (Just assume it's a society like Earths, except in SPAAACE, to make things easier)

And 7 How would they live?

 

 

Now, as this is a thought experiment, go wild! Just make sure it obeys the laws of physics.

 

Let the fun begin!

Edited March 11, 2016 by Spaceception

[SargeRho]

All of these depend on the size of the orbital habitat. Assuming it's big enough for all of these...

1: Hydroponic/Aeroponics for the most part, but also some normal farming. In a giant O'Neill cylinder, you could even have Earth-like farms lining the walls.

2: Sewage treatment plants. And oysters.

3: How many resources can you cough up?

4: Hundreds to tens of thousands, some of the larger ones might even hold millions.

5: They'd probably either orbit planetary L-points, to be able to easily trade with both the planet below, and other planets. L points are rather easy to reach in the Earth/Moon system. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are also good spots to build one. I expect Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter to become very busy once we move into the outer solar system. Others might orbit near the Asteroid Belt.

6: I'm not sure I understand the question. But they will probably only be built in spots that offer some sort of economic incentive. Ice mining on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, Nitrogen mining around Uranus and Neptune, Helium 3 harvesting on Uranus, overseeing the Terraforming of Mars, or maybe some exoplanet?

7: Not much differently from us. Except the sky would be either the ceiling of the torus, or the opposite wall of the cylinder. This would be an amazing sight to see. I hope medical and technological advances will allow me to live long enough to see this. 

 

The more I think about orbital colonies, the more I like the idea. There are most likely going to be 3 types of orbital colonies. Luxury resorts and habitats, in the Cassini Division for example, exchange ports, in Low Earth Orbit, and built next to Phobos for example, and Space Cities, to allow the workforce and their family to be closer to the action.

We might see something like the Coriolis Stations in Elite: Dangerous. Orbital trade and culture hubs, that might even allow smaller ships to dock inside, at some point, if we end up with small shuttle type spacecraft, with varied gravity levels, more on the outer parts of the station, less on the inner parts. 

Edited March 11, 2016 by SargeRho

[Spaceception]

16 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

3: How many resources can you cough up?

I guess I should state in the OP, roughly the amount equivalent in the solar system 100x over, and mostly silicates and iron instead of He and H

Edited March 11, 2016 by Spaceception

[SargeRho]

@SpaceceptionThen the size will depend entirely on the needs and engineering limits. Obviously, you won't build The Citadel in the middle of nowhere somewhere to the left of Tau Ceti. But I can easily see a 15km diameter torus orbiting outside of Jupiter's radiation belt, remotely orbiting Ammonia miners on Callisto, and serving as resting place for travelers to Ganymedean and Europan underwater/underice colonies, or large freighters waiting to refill their Antiproton Storage Rings.

Toroidal colonies might also have a river/lake running all along the outer wall, used to stabilize the rotation of the station, and serving as fresh water reservoirs.

Edited March 11, 2016 by SargeRho

[Andem]

21 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Lets talk orbital colonies; actually, lets not talk, lets theorize!

Here's what I want you to do:

1 How will food be produced?

2 How will water be recycled?

3 How Big will it be? (The resources given would be 100x the mass of the solar system, and mostly iron and silicates)

4 How many will it hold initially, and how many will it hold max?

5 What will it orbit? A planet, moon, star, or black hole (Be specific on it's rough characteristics)? (No Galaxies, the resources needed would be way too big)

6 How would it be relevant to the society that builds it (Just assume it's a society like Earths, except in SPAAACE, to make things easier)

And 7 How would they live?

1 Algea will be used for food, grown in most areas on the station. 

2 Boiled with ecess heat from station operation

3 As big as needed

4 1000, max of 1000000 people.

5 Sol, Imbetween Venus abd Earth.

6 As soon as the third generation crops up, it will declare independance from the owning nation. Trade routes are cut, and the ststion grows independantly.

7 Unknowable, although they would be incapable of going planetside, Swimming is the primary form of excercise.

[SargeRho]

@Andem
Why would the be unable to go planetside? Spinning colonies would probably have close to 1g of gravity, maybe a bit less. There's no reason why the inhabitants shouldn't be able to walk on planets. The lighting would either come in the form of filtered sunlight, or artificial sunlight.

Edited March 11, 2016 by SargeRho

[Andem]

Just now, SargeRho said:

@Andem
Why would the be unable to go planetside? Spinning colonies would probably have close to 1g of gravity, maybe a bit less. There's no reason why the shouldn't be able to walk on planets.

Whoever said they would have a spinning station? The lore for my colony is a long-term (10 Generations) experiment in 0g societies. 

[SargeRho]

10 minutes ago, Andem said:

Whoever said they would have a spinning station? The lore for my colony is a long-term (10 Generations) experiment in 0g societies. 

There's no good reason not to have spinning colonies if you can build them. You can always have a zero-g shipyard/docking yard trailing behind or leading ahead of the station in an identical orbit.

I have a sci-fi universe where zero-g shipyards anchored to the planet via space elevator are basically standard practice, and many have O'Neill cylinders trailing a few hundred kilometers behind them in their orbit. With more O'Neill cylinders and Stanford Toruses as space cities elsewhere.

Edited March 11, 2016 by SargeRho

[fredinno]

17 hours ago, Spaceception said:

How Big will it be? (The resources given would be 100x the mass of the solar system, and mostly iron and silicates)

WUT?

I would build a 10000 people colony in LEO, as a premier space port. For starters. And use hydroponics for food.

[Spaceception]

19 hours ago, fredinno said:

WUT?

I would build a 10000 people colony in LEO, as a premier space port. For starters. And use hydroponics for food.

I wanted people to think big.

[peadar1987]

48 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I wanted people to think big.

At the moment the most people we have ever had in space at one time is 13. 10,000 is thinking very big!

Edited March 14, 2016 by peadar1987

[Spaceception]

Just now, peadar1987 said:

At the moment the most people we have ever had in space at one time is, I believe, less than 10*. 10,00 is thinking very big!

 

*Off to do some digging on that one now

I believe it's 13 or 14 actually, also, you forgot a 0 on 10,000

and by big, I mean ENORMOUS.

[peadar1987]

Just now, Spaceception said:

I believe it's 13 or 14 actually, also, you forgot a 0 on 10,000

and by big, I mean ENORMOUS.

13, 6 people on the ISS, and 7 on the shuttle docked to it, previous post edited, thanks!

And I stand by saying that a 10,000 person space colony is enormous! 

[Spaceception]

Just now, peadar1987 said:

13, 6 people on the ISS, and 7 on the shuttle docked to it, previous post edited, thanks!

And I stand by saying that a 10,000 person space colony is enormous! 

What about country sized enormous?

[peadar1987]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

What about country sized enormous?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu?

[Spaceception]

Just now, peadar1987 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu?

I can't get on Wikipedia, any other links?

[SargeRho]

11 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I can't get on Wikipedia, any other links?

"Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia [...].The total land area of the islands of Tuvalu is 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi). "

Edited March 14, 2016 by SargeRho

[peadar1987]

Just now, Spaceception said:

I can't get on Wikipedia, any other links?

"Tuvalu has a population of 10,837 (2012 census) "

[Spaceception]

Just now, SargeRho said:

"Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia [...].The total land area of the islands of Tuvalu is 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi). "

Okay, @peadar1987, checkmate to me I guess