what space is lacking
I really don’t think space tourism is the way forward. Tourism today is one of the world’s largest industries, but it is a luxury industry, something that profits off of other things. Tourism will not bring people to a lasting habitation in space.
No, for a permanent human colony to finally be established in space, space needs an economy which is exports-driven. The moon, for instance, contains many useful metals, including iron and titanium. On the moon, gravity is approximately one sixth that of the Earth–meaning it will take only a fraction of the energy to mine. The velocity needed to escape the moon’s gravity is only one sixth of that of the earth, so moon-orbital vehicles would not be excessively cost-prohibitative. From lunar orbit, the mined resources are sent to the earth, where only gravity and a careful guidance system are necessary to guide them to a controlled landing zone, allowing for instant shipment to nearly anywhere on the globe.
Initially, this would be unprofitable, because it will be vastly more expensive to create and maintain the necessary presence in space than can possibly be reaped from mining the materials. However, as the operation scales up, the cost-earnings ratio swings the other way.
Humans would live originally just on the moon, and only a few–probably less than twenty. Shipments would go directly to lunar orbit, and then to the Earth. Eventually, though, it will become realistic to expand to multiple mines. Shipments going to lunar orbit will collect at a geosynchronous satellite; the satellite’s purpose will be to combine shipments for increased efficiency in their journey to Earth. A base will be established in geosynchronous Earth orbit to receive these shipments; then, rather than falling destructively to the earth, the mechanism used to transport the shipments can unload and return to the lunar satellite, acting as a cargo ship. A less expensive, more disposable entry vehicle will be used to allow the payload to descend to the Earth.
Much of this can be robotized, but as the operations scale up some human hands will need to be around for the maintenance and repairs that machines just aren’t versatile enough to handle. A small crew will be established at each satellite, and continue on the bases on the moon. Eventually a lunar city will allow miners the opportunity to socialize beyond their limited ten-man bases; it will be a nexus, providing fresher food and products from the earth than can be supplied to distributed small centers all over the moon. As the moon grows, so will the necessary support in space. Eventually, the space satellites themselves will need to expand beyond small ten-person crews; they will become a customer for the lunar exports, using them to build space stations and colonies.
On the moon, on the first human bases, cosmic radiation will be a significant problem. Miles of atmosphere shield the Earth from cosmic (and other kinds of) radiation; but the moon’s atmosphere is relatively negligible. Instead, to prevent damage from cosmic radiation, lunar bases will be constructed hundreds of feet underground, allowing the mass of the moon to provide shielding. Given that the purpose of the bases are to mine, digging equipment is necessary anyhow; this solution also provides for cheap and easy material to make walls, given that the moon itself can be used. A small tunnel will allow surface access when necessary, and to send and receive shipments. Originally, all food and similar perishables will be imported from the Earth.
When the satellites are established in lunar and terrestrial geosynchronous orbits, they originally may only require the occasional human visitor for maintenance; when they require a constant small crew, that crew will survive cosmic radiation and muscular decay using the same techniques current astronauts do–leaving. The crews will work in shifts, spending their downtime on the Earth under normal conditions, with limited exposure.
The lunar city, too, will be developed underground for safety from exposure to cosmic radiation. At this point, the mining crews will begin staying for longer shifts, rather than traveling back to the Earth after only a few weeks. In the lightened gravity of the moon, excercise will be tremendously important to delay muscle atrophy; the lunar city will provide new and improved devices for simulating artificial Earth gravity, perhaps something Ferris-wheel sized and shaped, but used at such speed to create centripetal force at a ninety degree angle to the moon’s “down.” Here, miners will be able to experience the Earth’s gravity for hours or even a few days of off-time at a time, as well as picking up on other resources. The lunar city will provide water to the miners by melting the moon’s ice; as it expands, it will contain its own greenhouses, using the appropriate wavelengths of artificial light and irrigation to grow plants for both a more oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange and for fresh food. Lower gravity will likely have a pronounced effect on such food, but the most easily forseeable effect is that it would be capable of growing larger more quickly, which simply makes the process desirable.
As the moon’s mining operation grows, so will the need for permanent settlements in space. Given the hazards and problems of space, a dedicated colony would need to be massive and probably circular; it would rotate to use centripetal force for artificial gravity, and its walls would include millions of tons of lunar dust, exported simply to provide mass between the vulnerable humans inside and the cosmic radiation outside; a densely packed wall, a hundred or more feet in depth, will surround the colony and make it survivable.
This colony, too, will be a city, but unlike the lunar city it will be able to rotate freely and easily, allowing for an easily adjustable simulated level of gravity. It will also begin to grow plants for food and fresher air; it will attract tourists; perhaps, if situated in Earth orbit, it will be only a short hop from a space elevator or low-orbit docking platform for limited altitude vehicles. Eventually it will move from being just a waystation or re-exporter of moon raw materials to a manufacturing center; factory peripherals outside the main colony, not rotating and thus without any gravity at all, can easily move and assemble dense loads; the energy saved by not having to fight Earth-level gravitational forces in manufacturing will be tremendous, and the colony can take advantage of this. It will be a research platform, enabling all kinds of research that cannot be performed in a gravitational environment. Solar panels, unhindered by Earth atmosphere or climate, will provide tremendous amounts of energy; waste product can be easily ejected on a projectile path towards the sun, rather than taking up landfill space or emitting toxic gasses while being burned.
Based on the initial crude design, a commercial developer will decide to build a bigger, better, more efficient colony, based on a vastly improved design, and attract permanent residents. Competing colonies will be established, in space orbit and below the moon’s surface, and before too long perhaps Mars’ moons will be mined as well; eventually Mars itself, despite its greater gravity, could become an export center for raw materials. Privately owned freight haulers will ply the void, carrying passengers and cargo between colonies in space and on the moon. Companies will provide flights to space, or rides on the space elevator, and transport from low-Earth-orbit satellites to the colonies. Small spacecraft will marketed to individuals, first freight captains, then bored aristocrats looking for new thrills, then entry-level models to the public. People can once again live on the frontier beyond human civilization, visiting only for trade and necessary supplies before returning to freedom once more. Humankind will branch out and exist beyond just the confines of Earth, able to visit home but not limited any longer to that locale.
Why did I provide this unnecessarily detailed and lengthy description? Because most people don’t bother to think about this. If I said we need to have colonies in space, they would ask why, or how. Even many space enthusiasts think space tourism is the way forward, and it is to a limited extent. Space tourism spurs industries to develop technology to get from the ground to low Earth orbit and back, and that’s the first step–and efficient low-orbit vehicle. But space tourism won’t establish a space colony–the resources necessary will simply outweigh the money to be made. Capitalists, with an eye on space’s resources, need to be informed. Someone with the money and long-term point of view to invest billions in this and be capable of failing–but showing the way for a later successful venture–must decide it’s a reasonable return on investment. Someone who worries that mankind is too vulnerable upon this little green sphere, that we may nuke ourselves to pieces or be hit by an asteroid, and if that happens there needs to be a human population elsewhere to come back and repopulate thousands of years later when the Earth is habitable again–a Noah’s ark.
The Earth’s governments will never provide the necessary capital, because they do what their constituent citizens require to allow them to maintain power, and the majority of mankind is too ignorant and self-interested to recognize the importance of this or make it a priority. It will have to be done by someone with tremendous resources and vision, the one person whose power to accomplish things doesn’t depend on the beliefs or expectations of the average man. Someone who understands that an economy cannot be built on tourism; that tourism can supplement it and eventually supplant it, but that tourism itself will never inspire lasting infrastructure. It will take someone who realizes that the one benefit space has over the Earth is a vastly larger supply of resources, and in many cases lower gravity which makes them easier to mine and transport. Someone with tremendous resources to invest as a startup, someone who’s more dedicated to this concept than to his wealth–willing to lose billions of dollars on his own venture if it doesn’t work out, knowing that his attempt has shown the way and opened the dreams of thousands of others, and insured that someone else will invest and keep trying, perhaps years later, perhaps after public skepticism and fear has died down about original unsuccess, but eventually.
But why not just say that? Why this long, specific example? Do I really think it will work out exactly like this? Of course not. I’m just saying that it can. If this were to happen, it would work. This isn’t a prediction of what will happen–it’s an assertion that it can, definitely, be done. It’s a refutation of all those who never thought about it because they’d never believe it will happen. It’s an example of a rough but not unreasonable plan of how this could happen. Yes, there are other obstacles and dangers in space I haven’t addressed, but they can be overcome, just as the cosmic radiation I’ve constantly referred to can–with lots of resources, work, and a determination to do whatever is necessary. That’s how the West was won, after all, wasn’t it? And that’s what space is, now, the next frontier awaiting mankind, the only refuge available in the foreseeable future for people who want to get away from others and live in peaceful anarchy.
I bet I am the only one who read this and I want to say you make a valid point. Now just to make billions of dollars and invest!
You have thought a lot of it out, and it’s a testament to your ability to consider many variables at once and to address most of them at a high level. I do think it would be a lot more cost effective, however, to take care of the green planet we are already on and for which we are well suited (having evolved here, after all) than to underwrite the massive initial capital investment. The problems we have that we hope to escape elsewhere (moon or space colony), whether nuclear annihilation or terrorism or devastating our planet’s ecology so as to cause significant extinction, are not due to deficiencies of our planet, but rather to our attitudes and tendencies which we would carry over with us to any new environment, and without addressing these, it would only be a matter of time before we repeated the same patterns there.