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It seems to me we should be putting more effort into building very large space-based habitats. With a large space station, it can generate 1g artificial gravit

It seems to me we should be putting more effort into building very large space-based habitats. With a large space station, it can generate 1g artificial gravity simply by rotating (which is much better than Mars with only 1/3g), you don't have to worry about a hostile environment because it's entirely artificial so you can make it whatever you want, solar power should be abundant if you locate the station not too far from Earth (which will give you power and heat), so the only real problem will be radiation, but that could be mitigated with lots of shielding, once you've found a cheap place to mine for materials in space. We already have small artificial environments here on Earth that people live in for extended periods; we call them "submarines". We also have the ISS and previous space stations, which people have inhabited for years at a time. So we know how to make artificial habitats which support life. Now we just need to scale them up a whole lot, make them rotate for gravity, and give them shielding since they won't be in LEO.

neaden 10y ago
But why would you do that vs. just building a city in Antarctica or the Gobi Desert which is even more habitable? Outside of scientific research and tourism there just aren't a lot of reasons to go into space and neither of those require a huge colony of people.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  Antarctica is NOT more habitable. It's really cold there, so you have to use a lot of energy to keep it warm. Space-based habitats don't have that problem, because there's no convective cooling like there is in Antarctica. They're relatively easy to keep at a comfortable temperature. The only thing Antarctica has going for it is a ready supply of breathable air, but supplying that hasn't been a big problem on space stations for a long time. Also, a space station will have a much better view than an outpost in Antarctica. A city in the Gobi desert would be pointless. First, it's owned by China and they aren't going to let you just build a city there, and second, we have tons of cities in deserts, so why would we want another one? There's no compelling reason to bother with such a thing. More practically, it can be used for a lot of missions, like learning how to manufacture stuff in low-gravity (and taking advantage of low-g or zero-g for manufacturing) (the middle of the station would be zero-g), or acting as a waypoint for other missions to the Moon or asteroids or Mars, etc. The main disadvantage to the huge space station is, of course, cost. But there's enormous economic opportunities there beyond tourism and research, starting with resource extraction.
  - neaden 10y ago
    Antartica has breathable air, gravity, a magnetic field, water, and much much cheaper to resupply and move heavy equipment too. Now I still wouldn't reccomend building a city there, or the Gobi desert both of which I agree would be pointless, it's just that a giant space station is even more pointless.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      >it's just that a giant space station is even more pointless. Sorry, but this comment is just plain ignorant. Would you also call the Apollo missions pointless? Building a giant space station would give us a permanent and significant presence in space, and would give us enormous advances in technology as we figure out how to deal with the challenges of such an engineering undertaking, just as we did with Apollo. Moreover, the station would have a lot of other uses, such as manufacturing. You can't do zero-g manufacturing in Antarctica. There's untold uses for low-g or zero-g manufacturing, perhaps things involving crystal growth. The station can also be a waypoint for asteroid capture missions, which would give us immense mineral wealth without having to do environmentally-horrible mining operations here on Earth.

neaden 10y ago

But why would you do that vs. just building a city in Antarctica or the Gobi Desert which is even more habitable? Outside of scientific research and tourism there just aren't a lot of reasons to go into space and neither of those require a huge colony of people.

Grishnakh 10y ago
Antarctica is NOT more habitable. It's really cold there, so you have to use a lot of energy to keep it warm. Space-based habitats don't have that problem, because there's no convective cooling like there is in Antarctica. They're relatively easy to keep at a comfortable temperature. The only thing Antarctica has going for it is a ready supply of breathable air, but supplying that hasn't been a big problem on space stations for a long time. Also, a space station will have a much better view than an outpost in Antarctica. A city in the Gobi desert would be pointless. First, it's owned by China and they aren't going to let you just build a city there, and second, we have tons of cities in deserts, so why would we want another one? There's no compelling reason to bother with such a thing. More practically, it can be used for a lot of missions, like learning how to manufacture stuff in low-gravity (and taking advantage of low-g or zero-g for manufacturing) (the middle of the station would be zero-g), or acting as a waypoint for other missions to the Moon or asteroids or Mars, etc. The main disadvantage to the huge space station is, of course, cost. But there's enormous economic opportunities there beyond tourism and research, starting with resource extraction.
- neaden 10y ago
  Antartica has breathable air, gravity, a magnetic field, water, and much much cheaper to resupply and move heavy equipment too. Now I still wouldn't reccomend building a city there, or the Gobi desert both of which I agree would be pointless, it's just that a giant space station is even more pointless.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    >it's just that a giant space station is even more pointless. Sorry, but this comment is just plain ignorant. Would you also call the Apollo missions pointless? Building a giant space station would give us a permanent and significant presence in space, and would give us enormous advances in technology as we figure out how to deal with the challenges of such an engineering undertaking, just as we did with Apollo. Moreover, the station would have a lot of other uses, such as manufacturing. You can't do zero-g manufacturing in Antarctica. There's untold uses for low-g or zero-g manufacturing, perhaps things involving crystal growth. The station can also be a waypoint for asteroid capture missions, which would give us immense mineral wealth without having to do environmentally-horrible mining operations here on Earth.