Tim Auton wrote in message . ..
"Mighty Krell" wrote:
"Mike Combs" wrote in message
...
"AA Institute" wrote in message
om...

No
matter what kind of orbital colony you establish, their effluence will
need disposal into space and sooner or later you'll end up with a ring
around the habitat scattered along its orbit around the Earth.

Unless you establish the kind that breaks waste products down into their
constituent elements for re-use.

Ahh, a MAGIC space station.

You've lived your entire life in one. There has been a lot of research
into biospheres. Artificial ones aren't quite perfected but they are
certainly possible. That's just bio-waste, of course. Crud left over
from mining operations may truly be waste, but I'm sure it could be
used as reaction mass and directed into the sun or some other harmless
place.

Absolutely; all the unneeded items like clothes, expired foods,
household waste, etc on the ISS today are periodically despatched via
an un-manned Russian 'Progress' freighter, which plunges them into the
Earth's atmosphere for harmless burn-up.

However, managing the waste from a microscopic size crew of just 3
people vs a colony of say 2,000 on the *Celestial Titanic* being
envisioned here, is a whole new ball game! A MAGIC formula is needed,
or we end up with a "Lord of the Earth Rings" kind of scenario...

AAI