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O'Neill's colony design is flawed (and needs updating): in particular they had huge glassed-in window areas to admit sunlight (focussed via reflectors) for agri

O'Neill's colony design is flawed (and needs updating): in particular they had huge glassed-in window areas to admit sunlight (focussed via reflectors) for agriculture: he didn't account for differential heating-induced expansion/shrinkage. On the other hand, he didn't have modern CAD back in the early 1970s. So in principle we can come up with something better. The biggest problem is exposure to cosmic radiation -- L5 is way outside the Van Allen belts and high energy cosmic rays take roughly a metre of water to attenuate, or magnetic fields of 10-20 Tesla strength around the spacecraft. Which is a lot of mass (or a ridiculously strong magnetic field). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
carapace 7y ago
Oh hey Charlie Stross! I'm a bit of a fan. - - - - I have a vague idea that a kind of spittle bug foam design made from bubbles of various diameters nested to provide redundancy might work well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittle_bug#Spittlebug_nymphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittle_bug#Spittlebug_nymphs It's could be simple, flexible, easy to construct or modify, and resilient to impacts. I'm not an engineer or scientist though. - - - - A tangent, if I may... I think we need more near-term hard sci-fi set in the future that e.g. Musk's space trucks are about to enable, to get more people excited and involved. I've been trawling through Netflix and cable recently looking for inspiring, even-slightly-realistic sci-fi and it's a barren desert out there. There are a handful of shows that aren't bad, and I've heard good things about "Black Mirror". One the other hand, I watched a clip of "Star Trek: Discovery" the other day and had a minor apoplexy. It's more like a cartoon than the actual cartoon. In contrast, I have a "100 Sci-Fi Movies" DVD set that my sister got me for Christmas one year, and a lot of the older black & white sci-fi movies are practically documentaries for space exploration and colonization. Sure there are silly aliens and such, but the technology and settings are realistic (at least compared to e.g. Star Trek or Star Wars.) I think some concrete visions of what it might actually be like to attempt to build and live on a moonbase or Mars colony would inspire people to want to really do it.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Have you watched or read The Expanse?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

carapace 7y ago

Oh hey Charlie Stross! I'm a bit of a fan. - - - - I have a vague idea that a kind of spittle bug foam design made from bubbles of various diameters nested to provide redundancy might work well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittle_bug#Spittlebug_nymphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittle_bug#Spittlebug_nymphs It's could be simple, flexible, easy to construct or modify, and resilient to impacts. I'm not an engineer or scientist though. - - - - A tangent, if I may... I think we need more near-term hard sci-fi set in the future that e.g. Musk's space trucks are about to enable, to get more people excited and involved. I've been trawling through Netflix and cable recently looking for inspiring, even-slightly-realistic sci-fi and it's a barren desert out there. There are a handful of shows that aren't bad, and I've heard good things about "Black Mirror". One the other hand, I watched a clip of "Star Trek: Discovery" the other day and had a minor apoplexy. It's more like a cartoon than the actual cartoon. In contrast, I have a "100 Sci-Fi Movies" DVD set that my sister got me for Christmas one year, and a lot of the older black & white sci-fi movies are practically documentaries for space exploration and colonization. Sure there are silly aliens and such, but the technology and settings are realistic (at least compared to e.g. Star Trek or Star Wars.) I think some concrete visions of what it might actually be like to attempt to build and live on a moonbase or Mars colony would inspire people to want to really do it.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
Have you watched or read The Expanse?