Imagining a Kerbal Future: What Would the Future of Kerbals Look Like? (Chapter XLIII: Epilogue)

[Alpha 360]

Remember the use of particle fountains to hold up the orbital ring in LKO. You might want to listen to Issac Author for more detail. He is a futurist on YouTube and my favorite YouTuber at that.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Alpha 360
"Kouston, we have several problems, but that doesn't matter so we want to continue on with the mission."

[SaturnianBlue]

1 hour ago, Alpha 360 said:

Remember the use of particle fountains to hold up the orbital ring in LKO. You might want to listen to Issac Author for more detail. He is a futurist on YouTube and my favorite YouTuber at that.

Isaac Arthur! His videos are great! I've watched quite a lot of his videos, and I'll check that one out.

[KAL 9000]

POLAND CAN INTO SPACE LOW KERBIN ORBIT!

[Laythe Squid]

11 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

POLAND CAN INTO SPACE LOW KERBIN ORBIT!

Hey, that's my line!

[Laythe Squid]

WE Can Into LKO!

[SaturnianBlue]

I hoped to get the next chapter complete rather early this week, but homework effectively kept me from working on the chapter the past few days. Don't worry though, I've finished the draft of the chapter, so a weekend release of this episode will hopefully happen.

[Avery616]

On 4/18/2017 at 6:43 AM, Kosmonaut said:

Don't forget the hydrogen bombs being detonated behind the spacecraft

Wasn't that a idea for a rocket in the 50s or something?

[SaturnianBlue]

48 minutes ago, Avery616 said:

Wasn't that a idea for a rocket in the 50s or something?

That's right, Project Orion, using nukes as propulsion. They even designed a space battleship which could actually work, armed with nukes, naval guns, and a Casaba Howitzer, which fired charges that concentrated the energy of a nuke into a narrow beam...

[SaturnianBlue]

That's a Stanford Torus, Bernal Sphere, and an O'Niell Cylinder for those curious

Why Settle Kerbin Orbit

Kerbin Orbit—that is, everything from the 70 km to the edge of Kerbin’s SOI—82,000 km, is quite a loose term, but it is far closer than anything covered so far. Therefore, kerbals from Kerbin can easily reach it, opening up new forms of revenue.

    Being in orbit, anything will be weightless without some way of generating gravity, whether it be by rotating habitats or other means. This allows for zero-G recreation, of which plenty of games could be based on (perhaps one where the gate is down). Additionally, the advent of space elevators or other cheap methods of space-transport would make this quite lucrative, with Kerbin tourists could spend their weekends at one of these stations, admiring a view of Kerbin while playing space football.

Even at this minimal burn travel times are just a day

    Another reason is that it acts as a gateway for travel to and from Kerbin. At Kerbosynchronous orbit, it only takes ~450 m/s of delta-v to achieve orbit around the Mun. Provided the method of getting there is easy, space habitats in KSO could act as a hub for moving goods to and from the Mun and asteroids, and for cheap passenger travel to those targets.

    From Kerbin, travel to any orbital settlements is mere days or hours away, not to mention very little time delay for telecommunication. This makes building a space settlement in orbit more secure, as bringing up materials for construction is easier and responding to emergencies is actually possible, unlike on Eve, where help is weeks and likely months away. Therefore, it also means lower transport times and less fuel required for deliveries to Kerbin, turning a profit easier.

A giant, un-aerodynamic ship

    Space manufacturing in Kerbin orbit could be another way of turning a profit. Without the effects of gravity or the atmosphere, it becomes viable to build giant, un-aerodynamic spaceships that tend are torn apart by forces in the atmosphere and are a pain to lift into space. Additionally, the massive space colonies needed to create natural-feeling gravity (without the Coriolis effect) and support a normal life would become possible, the resources of  which can be collected easier by passing asteroids and space elevators. Another example of large structures that benefit from construction in space would be solar panels, where Kerbol is visible all the time, and stresses on the panels is lower. Lastly, there are many materials that simply cannot be replicated under atmosphere or gravity.

Issues

Despite being a relatively cheap and safe place to settle, Kerbin orbit is not without its challenges. First, most resources have to be imported, leaving the settlements quite dependent. Kerbin orbit itself doesn’t have many resources, such as metals, per se. Second, even resources from asteroids or the Mun require delta-V to dock with stations in Kerbin orbit, even though it might be very little. Unless a space elevator or other modes of transport are constructed, delivering resources from Kerbin will probably cost even more, and even if that is fixed, the habitats may still be somewhat dependent on other worlds, leaving them vulnerable if hard times hit.

"I don't like regolith. It's sharp, it's rough, and it gets everywhere."

While Kerbin’s magnetic field (presumed to exist) protects these orbital habitats from some radiation, it doesn’t protect it fully—requiring thick radiation shielding. A likely material for protecting these colonies would be Munar regolith or water, but it would certainly be a costly undertaking, transporting many tons of material to the space colonies, though the water could also act as a reserve supply.

Lastly, measures would need to be taken to combat micrometeorite damage, especially for windows, where there is likely less shielding. Unless an impact was a large one, in which one cannot help but think it was intentional, there is plenty of air in large habitats, so it will take a very long amount of time for a colony to depressurize. Even then, windows should be in individual small units to prevent a large leak if one big one shatters.

Colony Design

    Since Kerbin orbit is such a broad topic for a space colony, I’ll focus on the design that I could see being the most lucrative—one in a Kerbosynchronous orbit. The core of this design is a space elevator, whose cable will likely be made of carbon nanotubes. However, construction of this main part should be easier given shorter distance compared to the Earth’s Geosynchronous orbit (at 35,800km vs 2863), which will thankfully cut down on the time one must listen to elevator music. As stated earlier, this will cut down on lifting cost immensely, as opposed to rockets—expensive even when reusable. In addition, ships could even be sent above Kerbosynchronous orbit, which would put a released payload on an elliptical or even an escape trajectory, essentially giving them a free boost.  The limit to the space elevator’s effectiveness is about how much can be carried up.

    Near the center are facilities for zero gravity recreation and for manufacturing, where large ships are serviced or built, using materials from Kerbin via space elevator or from asteroids/Mun via mass driver. Therefore, the colony itself is constructed with these sources. These two features of the station will likely provide much of the revenue for the station.

    The general design is based off of the Stanford Torus, which used a giant mirror to reflect sunlight onto a central ring. A ring (over a kilometer in size) spins to provide gravity, and is used as the main area for growing crops and housing tens of thousands of kerbals.

    The power source for the torus is located several kilometers away at the center. This power source could be a large solar panel, or it could be a reactor, with the distance of the reactor protecting the colonists in the main torus if a major issue ever surfaced.

Colony Growth Progression

    The very first space stations in Kerbin orbit will likely orbit at low altitudes, and will probably be reliant on Kerbin for supplies. The size of these will be quite limited by the need for heavy radiation shielding, which will consume much of the mass. Such early space stations will likely act as fuel depots and science labs.

    As asteroid and Mun mining become more prevalent, the transportation of supplies to all locations in Kerbin orbit is also far easier. For that reason, the construction of large colonies hosting many thousands of people becomes far cheaper, which would allow for the construction of orbital colonies like the one I depicted earlier, with large industries.

The construction of a space elevator would be yet another boost to colonies, which can use them for supplies or as the base for their colony. These orbital colonies could provide more places for kerbals to live, in case Kerbin becomes quite overpopulated or polluted.

Conclusion

    Kerbin orbit will be one of the first steps to colonizing space, which will eventually come back to benefit the colonies, as the vast resources of the Kerbol system could sustain the construction of thousands, if not millions of massive colonies in Kerbin orbit.

End of Chapter IX

 

Thanks for Reading!

 

Next: Colonizing the Mun

Edited May 21, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[Skylon]

Mun: Closest body to Kerbin with gravity. Mining operations would take place here. The Mun would be the primary target for military ops in space, with missile silos ready to defend or attack Kerbin or Kerbin orbiting ships. Bases would likely be located underground, and tourists could visit old monuments and landmarks, like the Kerbollo 11 landing site, and the monoliths. There could even be an amusement park.

[SaturnianBlue]

I'm almost finished up with the Mun chapter, all I need to do is draw the colony designs. Here's a sneak peek for the chapter.

[Alpha 360]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Right, light all day, prefect place for a Mun colony, you been doing your homework 

Are you sure?

Are you sure?

Are you sure?

Are you sure?

 

[Kosmonaut]

south pole of the mun?

[SaturnianBlue]

The Mun is quite similar to a certain “Moon”, which is why a fair amount of this chapter is based off ideas for the Moon. 

Why Settle?

    The Mun is the closest major object to Kerbin. This key factor alone makes it an immensely favorable target for colonization, as this means relatively short response times in the case of an emergency, especially compared to the weeks if not months required for other  planets. Not only that, it takes far less time to transport goods around the Kerbin system, allowing for far more trade; each ship can do many more voyages in less time compared to an interplanetary vessel, without burning extra fuel for a faster arrival time. The proximity to the home planet will allow kerbals to talk in more or less real time, which will help alleviate a feeling of loneliness that will inevitably come from being cut off from communication to fellow kerbals.

    Second on this list is Helium-3—though the economic motivation to settle the Mun posed by this is probably not as huge as generally seen as in the media. The main reason one would want to extract Helium-3 is that it could see use in aneutronic fusion, which does not require shielding from neutron radiation. However, massive amounts of regolith would require processing to collect it, as the resource is still quite rare, so one would definitely require more than simply that.

    Third, the components of the regolith on the Mun itself could be quite useful. Oxygen is the probably quite common in the soil, which could be extracted for use in the resources they have available to them, providing an alternative source of oxygen besides plants. Both Aluminum and Oxygen are common resources on the Mun, allowing for the possibility of Aluminum-Oxygen chemical rockets to make the runs to orbit and back loading resources onto freighters for longer distances. While such engines are inefficient, they are readily available, making them very cheap.

    The Mun likely hosts plenty of metals, which can be cheaply be shot out of a mass driver (no atmospheric drag, and a lower escape velocity) to be sent to an orbiting habitat, for example. The Mun could also be an early location for processing and manufacturing, with buildings not requiring much structural support due to the low gravity. The Mun has about 6 ppm of Thorium and Uranium, the presence of the former of which correlates with the real Moon being a KREEPy place (that's not my pun!).  If KREEP (named for containing potassium, rare earth kerbin elements, and phosphorus) exists on the Mun, key resources for a colony are quickly available to the colonists.

    As with Moho, the Mun would realistically be home to water ice hidden in dark craters, like its real-life analogue. The availability would be even better than its real life analogue, since axial tilt is nil in the Kerbal universe. On the flip side, multiple peaks of eternal light exist on the Mun, with many of the tallest mountains located near the poles, allowing for solar powers to be used all the time.

 

    Lastly, the Mun is the ideal place to build enormous telescopes. The lower gravity allows us to use techniques used on Kerbin, but far larger. Additionally, the Mun itself would block radio transmissions from Kerbin on the far side, which would at least reduce much of the signals.

Issues

    Despite the expansive list of reasons to settle the Mun, it is not without its issues. First, the regolith on the Mun is almost certainly sharp, as it has not been eroded. This would probably be dangerous to kerbals, causing various forms of abrasive damage and necessitating strict protocols during ingress to limit the spread of dust. However, regolith would provide shielding from radiation and could also see use as a building material for a variety of infrastructure projects, in the form of “muncrete”, a sort of concrete made from the regolith.

    If the Moon is quite an apt analogue for the Mun, the Mun is also likely to be quite depleted in volatiles, especially hydrogen and nitrogen. Such resources are important for rocket fuel, air, and many more. To obtain these gases, machines will likely have to dig through the regolith and heat it up to release the various gases.

    The low gravity of the Mun could be detrimental to kerbal health. This may necessitate the need for kerbals to live in rotating habitats to produce artificial gravity. Additionally, an intense kerbol storm would force all Kerbals to dash for safety, whether it be to a base or shelter, as the bombardment of radiation would be very dangerous.

    Lastly, the lack of an atmosphere increases the chance of a meteoroid striking buildings—even small impacts would cause considerable damage to mostly unprotected structures.

Colony Designs

    Several good locations exist for such a colony—the first of which is a colony at the poles. This colony would benefit from the supply of water ice that would probably exist at the poles, where it could be quickly shipped to the colony, much like the Moho colony. Second, solar panels could be set up at the top of the “peaks of eternal light” to generate consistent power. Even without continuous power, tall towers can be cheaply constructed in Mun gravity to collect sunlight as needed. Mirrors can also be constructed on the peaks for use in solar thermal plants, or to reflect light to plant-growing facilities below, which could be partially shielded on top from meteors and radiation by covering the facility in Munar regolith, as opposed to leaving such buildings completely exposed and the plants having to deal with a longer day.

 

    The main facilities of this colony in particular are built on the ground, and covered with regolith, or are built underground, either by digging or melting through rock. However, another colony location eliminates this requirement, which is a lava tube. While lava tubes obviously don’t exist in the game, it is quite easy to imagine that they would indeed exist. As naturally stable tunnels, kerbals should have little problem setting up a colony in such a location.

A smallish outpost at the equator

    At the equator, there are quite long periods of light and dark, which could make it somewhat difficult to raise crops using only kerbolight. A solution to this issue could be colonies on wheels/treads, as they could probably outpace the Mun’s rotation. The benefit of building a colony in this location would be the little orbital velocity gained by the rotation of the Mun, and here the orbit that a ship will be placed into is in the ecliptic, which will arguably be more useful for reaching most targets, provided the target is not extremely inclined.

    A large amount of the exports out of the Mun will likely be processed goods, or even just refined resources like metals. As mentioned in the previous chapter, resources used for the construction of large space colonies will likely originate from the Mun, providing large amounts of jobs for Munar colonists. Mass drivers fire ships into orbit in this manner, and are either sent into Mun orbit, or are shot off to their target, where they could burn, or perhaps use a rotating skyhook as a capture method. Large machines will likely travel across the Mun sifting through the munar soil, and pick out the resources demanded. For general transportation between colonies, trains could be used, which would travel across the Mun at high speed, with no atmosphere to hinder them.

Colony Growth Progression

    The first colonies would likely build habitats that are covered with regolith, a relatively simple option. Such colonies might act as fuel depots, by utilizing the resources around them—making it preferable to settle the poles, where volatiles exist in larger quantities. However, their main profit would involve cheaper transport of resources to locations around the Kerbin system, compared to Kerbin.

    Eventually, it may make sense to set up colonies at the equator, as the Mun has settled to the point that large mining operations can be quickly be set up, with mass drivers to make the operations cost effective. This in turn would promote the growth of orbital space colonies, which require the resources on the Mun to build, and would in turn promote the development of Mun colonies.

    Thanks to transport becoming increasingly cheaper, tourists from Kerbin may want to visit the many sights of the Mun. Additionally, the close proximity to Kerbin will encourage large amounts of immigration, and therefore it would probably be home to the largest population in space, with the Mun becoming a consumer base itself. With a large population, the Mun may even try to break away from Kerbin completely, though the close proximity to Kerbin may make this difficult. Perhaps by that stage, the cities of the Mun may be visible from Kerbin...

End of Chapter X

Thanks for Reading!

Next Chapter—Colonizing Minmus

 

Edited May 29, 2017 by SaturnianBlue
Sorry! I screwed up on formatting on some things

[SaturnianBlue]

What do you thinker the benefits/reasons for colonizing Minmus? This chapter is quite hard to write without any appropriate analogue, so I though I'd enlist everyone's help. What I have so far is it's relative proximity—allowing early and cheap development, and could serve as a tourist area. There's probably ice, though here's where I run into the main issue—what resources does Minmus have? It's obviously too close to Kerbol for normal ice, but maybe with salts? Another benefit is the low gravity that would make it good for building large structures. Besides those already mentioned, I don't have anymore, so I'd be of great help for some additional suggestions.

 

As a side note, I'd also like some suggestions for new topics once I'm done with colonization.

Edited May 29, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[Kosmonaut]

Interstellar Travel...

Also, Ice Mining on Minmus, and low gravity for launches

[SaturnianBlue]

1 minute ago, Kosmonaut said:

Interstellar Travel...

Also, Ice Mining on Minmus, and low gravity for launches

Good ideas! I'll make sure to have them, though i'm curious on what you mean by interstellar travel.

[The solid fuel chemist]

don't forget that ice is a critical terraforming ingredient (im looking at you, Eeloo. I'm coming for you)

[Alpha 360]

Interstellar travel: Epbstien drives which use metallic hydrogen(or so I think)

[Kosmonaut]

22 hours ago, SaturnianBlue said:

i'm curious on what you mean by interstellar travel.

Long duration, slower-than-light interstellar craft

10 hours ago, Alpha 360 said:

Interstellar travel: Epbstien drives which use metallic hydrogen(or so I think)

Yeah like that sort of

Also, I love the expanse thank you for watching it

Edited May 30, 2017 by Kosmonaut

[SaturnianBlue]

5 hours ago, Kosmonaut said:

Long duration, slower-than-light interstellar craft

Yeah like that sort of

Also, I love the expanse thank you for watching it

The Expanse is really good! I've only seen the first season (but i've read the first book), but it's good enough (which is saying a lot) for me to actually go and watch it!  I should probably test the Kerbstein Drive in KSP-I—I haven't updated to KSP 1.3 yet, but I'll probably check it out when I do that, as with a few other engines I overlooked in the propulsion chapters.

[Alpha 360]

I READ it, not watched it, sheesh. Great books though. don't you dare spoil the later books, I only read the first three. And honestly, they're just awesome. I think the third one's the best but the first is a close second. 

Also, spoilers for the third book

Spoiler

THE RING OF POWER!

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Alpha 360

[SaturnianBlue]

 

The last location in the Kerbin system on our list is Minmus. It’s a rather mysterious moon whose composition seems rather strange, with the surface being described as “mint-ice cream colored”. 

Why Settle?

    For an object in the Kerbin system, Minmus is quite the distant object—a full 10 days via Hohmann transfer from Kerbostationary orbit. However, that is still quite low compared to any planet, even though the delta-V required to reach Minmus isn’t much lower. The greatest advantage in fuel costs Minmus provides is that of an easy access to the surface—roughly three times less on the Mun. That factor makes Minmus very favorable for shipping materials to anywhere relative to the Mun, though it may take longer to deliver to destinations near Kerbin.

Catch the Easter Egg?

    While the low gravity is an issue that I’ve pointed out a lot in this series, it should be pointed out that it also allows large ships with low acceleration to land on the moon itself, removing the need for materials to be sent up to orbit and then take on cargo and fuel. It also allows for the construction of huge structures like mass drivers to be executed very easily.

    While the general composition of Minmus is unknown and heavily debated, with theories ranging from salt to crystals to well… mint ice cream, the focus for this chapter will be the resources Minmus has according to the orbital survey parts (with the community resource pack), and compare it to Kerbin. For each save the resources layout differs, but I think some patterns are somewhat consistent.  First, Minmus is low in Alumina, which is very common on the Mun and provides a cheap rocket fuel, and consists of aluminum and oxygen, which have a wide variety of resources.

    Another rare resource on Minmus is Gypsum, an important fertilizer. However, Minmus is plentiful in one of the most fundamentally key resources—water. While the Mun generally has below single digits in water, Minmus seems to have around 4%, give or take. This puts Minmus in a position to supply colonization efforts with water. Being such a small body, Minmus completely lacks geothermal energy, unlike other, larger solar system bodies. As for the others not mentioned, there seems to be a mostly average amount of those resources at a Minmus colonist’s disposal.

Issues

    For Minmus, there aren’t really any unique issues to be dealt with, aside from the many that are experienced in space in general, which are still many. For example, the issue of gravity will require people to spend much of their time in spinning habitats, or even the use of genetic engineering, and the slight gravity of Minmus will have to be accounted for.

    Another issue—lack of pressure—is just as dangerous in outer space, and hard shielding or defense weapons (which could easily be used in the wrong way…) will be needed to take out meteoroids. Thankfully, thick shielding will also contribute to protecting the colonists from radiation.

 

Colony Design

    The first step for the colony is to find the ideal location to do so—the flat plains on Minmus. With perfectly flat land and exceptionally low gravity, this becomes an excellent area to build large structures that can be far weaker than on Kerbin. The list of said structures would likely involve mass drivers, which can be built right on the surface, though a slight pitch will be required to avoid collisions with the tall, sloped mountains of Minmus.

    The low gravity of Minmus also makes it very easy to excavate the many resources on Minmus. Perhaps the most important export will be water, which can be shot out of a mass driver or transported with very low delta-V to targets across the system, making a Minmus colony key to supporting the development of space colonies by providing a resource that may not be easily available to many locations in the Kerbol system. The importance of a Minmus base would be even more important without mass drivers, a state likely to occur in the early phase of colonization, where mass drivers are simply too expensive. Without requiring much delta-V to enter orbit around the moon, it easily eliminates hundreds of meters a second of delta-V from the fuel budget and the low gravity means that even fairly feeble drives can take off without much difficulty.

A fairly large city home to presumably thousands of Kerbals, some of which are underground

    Habitation designs will likely utilize local dirt for radiation shielding, and said dirt could be placed around a habitat, or the habitat can be placed inside the ground, easily digging the regolith out of the ground and building a habitat in it. As with the space colonies and Gilly, a rotating habitat is the preferred design, and they could work inside the ground, provided there was a small space maintained between the moon and the colony, which should be fairly easy considering the low gravity, which the design is ironically trying to stop the effects of. However, rotating toruses may not be as useful if technology that allows for the normal development of kerbals is developed, in which case large domes or underground habitats can be constructed quite simply.

    

Colony Growth Progression

 

    The first large-scale colonization of Minmus would probably be intended to support the colonization of other planets, whether as a refueling location or as a water supplier. Despite its massive usefulness, I probably wouldn’t expect Minmus to be home to a lot of people, especially if automation is quite prevalent, as the various mining and ship maintenance could quite easily be done my a lot of robots, in my opinion.

    As the cost of transport around the Kerbin system decreases, Minmus might begin to see a boost in tourism, with especially low gravity and a very unique blue-green landscape. Perhaps the flat plains of Minmus could see rocket drag races across the surface and skating. This may even be necessary if other sources of water ice are found, resulting in Minmus being harder to profit from. As a small world, Minmus would likely be controlled by just one or a few entities, unlike larger worlds where many independent operations could be set up across the surface. 

Conclusion

    While a further target to reach than the Mun, Minmus is an excellent place to colonize thanks to the plentifulness of water ice, which can be sent interplanetary or inwards towards Kerbin for fairly little delta-V. Out here, colonies will face the regular dangers of outer space but not much else. With its strange appearance of a mint-ice cream world, a story could be quite convincingly written where this world came from another solar system, which could be host to alien material, so to speak...

Thanks for Reading!

 

End of Chapter XI

 

Next: Colonizing Duna

 

Edited June 3, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[KAL 9000]

I predict that mint ice cream exports will generate billions of  annually for the Minmus colonization industry, enabling it to pay for itself within ten years of the first base being established.

Edited June 4, 2017 by KAL 9000

[SaturnianBlue]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

I predict that mint ice cream exports will generate billions of  annually for the Minmus colonization industry, enabling it to pay for itself within ten years of the first base being established.

Then we will have real astronaut ice cream!