Moveable space colony

[Moontanman]

How about a space colony toroidal in shape half filled with foamed rock. The size of the space craft/colony would be determined by how much artifical gravety you would have to have and how strong the materials were you made it from. From an engeneering stand point it would be a lot like a suspension bridge with no end points. Carbon fiber tubes would be spun into cables that would wrap around the toroid and hold it in place. The toroid it's self would be made out of a strong polymer embed with carbon fibers. I'm not sure how big this could be scaled up but lets say 5 miles wide and 25 miles across. The toroid would be inflated to it's shape by air pressure. The gravity on the inside of the colony could maybe be held at one quarter earth normal. A nuclear reactor could be stationed at the center hub and magnetic sails could be used to move it slowly around the solar system. The spin and air pressure would be used to keep the shape static. Lighting the interior and maintaning an ecosystem would be just a few of the engeneering challenges. Probaly a much smaller version would lead to later and bigger versions.

Michael

[silverslith]

sounds like a "ringworld" Larry Niven
the culture also used them -can't recall the authors name right now.
We may need some in ~500years when the earths magnetic fields playing swoppo games haha.
the Ringword was at 1 AU, half million km wide with rimwalls to hold in its atmosphere. It had oceans with replicas of mars earth and some alien planets as islands. The ringworld engineers (sequel) had sodded off and it was a little run down. It had shadow rectangles orbiting closer to the sun for night and day.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by silverslith

sounds like a "ringworld" Larry Niven
the culture also used them -can't recall the authors name right now.
We may need some in ~500years when the earths magnetic fields playing swoppo games haha.
the Ringword was at 1 AU, half million km wide with rimwalls to hold in its atmosphere. It had oceans with replicas of mars earth and some alien planets as islands. The ringworld engineers (sequel) had sodded off and it was a little run down. It had shadow rectangles orbiting closer to the sun for night and day.

Yes Larry Niven had a similar idea but his was 300,000,000 miles long. Mine would somewhat smaller and could be built. John Varley also came up with an orbiting space colony but his was several hundred miles across and organicaly grown by aliens. Mine is "only" a few miles across and could move around. I think mine could actually be built with things like carbon tubes and fibers. An asteroid or comet could be mined to built it Once you got the factory up and running you could turn them out on an assembly line type of operation. I can see really small ones just a 100 meters thick and 300 meters acroos or meduim sized ones at 1 kilometer thick and maye 3 kilometers across. It would takew a gaurgantuin commitment but with automated factories building them it doesn't look impossable to build them. Maybe someday individuals could own tiny ones like we own houses now. Just an idea whose time hasn't come yet!

Michael

[silverslith]

In regard to starting cheap and bullding from there:
this sort of thing is very achievable compared to the energy and reaction mass expendible to payload mass issues with starships for example.
you could start with two asteroids connected with a pipe and spun for your gravity. If the pipe is a conductor you can use EM thrust with either a phantom loop (circuit closed by charged particles in the enviroment) or a shielded return path for the current.
Hollowing out asteroids in levels gives you a huge living surface area. Radiation problems easily eliminated by meter+ outer rock walls.
Scaling up to full toroid is easy to do with extra spokes and asteroids until a full circle is completed.
Starting with 3 instead of two asteroids with one hub asteroid would probably be an advantage as zero g factories, rec areas, central powerplant away from living areas is incorperated.
travel around the solar system requires only pathetic speeds and accelerations so such a research facility could be a very cost effective and easily engineered device.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by silverslith

In regard to starting cheap and bullding from there:
this sort of thing is very achievable compared to the energy and reaction mass expendible to payload mass issues with starships for example.
you could start with two asteroids connected with a pipe and spun for your gravity. If the pipe is a conductor you can use EM thrust with either a phantom loop (circuit closed by charged particles in the enviroment) or a shielded return path for the current.
Hollowing out asteroids in levels gives you a huge living surface area. Radiation problems easily eliminated by meter+ outer rock walls.
Scaling up to full toroid is easy to do with extra spokes and asteroids until a full circle is completed.
Starting with 3 instead of two asteroids with one hub asteroid would probably be an advantage as zero g factories, rec areas, central powerplant away from living areas is incorperated.
travel around the solar system requires only pathetic speeds and accelerations so such a research facility could be a very cost effective and easily engineered device.

For a look at a toriod space colony and how it could work, check out John Varley's trilogy Titain, Wizard, and Demon. they are a great read and gives life to the concept of living inside a toroid space colony. Lots of favors need to be resolved before our civilazation can build a space coloy like this but is they were built and used as interstellar milti generational ships we could occupy the entire galaxy in a few hundred thousand years with the technology we have today not "star Trek" type tecnology.

Micahel

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

How about a space colony toroidal in shape half filled with foamed rock. The size of the space craft/colony would be determined by how much artifical gravety you would have to have and how strong the materials were you made it from. From an engeneering stand point it would be a lot like a suspension bridge with no end points. Carbon fiber tubes would be spun into cables that would wrap around the toroid and hold it in place. The toroid it's self would be made out of a strong polymer embed with carbon fibers. I'm not sure how big this could be scaled up but lets say 5 miles wide and 25 miles across. The toroid would be inflated to it's shape by air pressure. The gravity on the inside of the colony could maybe be held at one quarter earth normal. A nuclear reactor could be stationed at the center hub and magnetic sails could be used to move it slowly around the solar system. The spin and air pressure would be used to keep the shape static. Lighting the interior and maintaning an ecosystem would be just a few of the engeneering challenges. Probaly a much smaller version would lead to later and bigger versions.

Michael

I would like some input on how to set up and maintain the ecology of such a space colony. Personally i think it would be start with bacteria, maybe protozoans, and then primitive plants. As all the land was covered by mosses ferns and liverworts you could then begin to introduce vascular plants. As for animal life I think it would be easier to keep a ecology going with reptiles and keeping all but a very few warm blooded animals out would be nesesarry to maintan the ecology of the colony/space craft. A callenge for the people living inside as it drifts like an intersellar snow flake would be to do nothing but sit around and wait for the colony to arrive or the people inside could keep stocking the ecosystem, slowly making it as complex as possible.

Michael

[silverslith]

All the ecology you need to start with is probably microscopic. A few algal strains will give all the nutrient higher orders of life need. Using a globe of water (other merits to this too) around human spaces you could build up to full aquatic ecologies. A bit wasteful though as 1 carnivore fish is dependant on consuming many many tons of microflora and fauna to grow to less than a kilo.

Those funky moonlets with their odd earth-solar orbits would be great places to convert.

[silverslith]

we could occupy the entire galaxy in a few hundred thousand years

Watch out man. Those Aliens will swat you!