Questions about "The High Frontier"

"Matthias Warkus" wrote in message
...
Hop David schrieb:

Orbital structures like the proposed Bigelow hotels would be inadequate
for long stays as gravity is needed to maintain health. Crew rotations
are very expensive so you want to make them infrequent.

People have held out in zero-g space stations for more than one year
without serious health problems AFAIK.


Yes and no. Long-term stays require extensive exercise while in orbit (on
the order of 2 hours a day).

If we start to build SPS and the like, almost certainly some form of
rotating stations (or at least sleeping quarters) will be built.


mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de


--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

On Oct 4, 3:26 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Damien Valentine wrote:
I see what you're saying, but curiously, that wasn't something that
O'Neill brought up. How many editions was "High Frontier" printed
in? Are you reading the same one as I am?

I've got the 1977 first edition by Morrow; start reading on page 198,
where the L colonies versus Utopias are discussed.
Although he says he isn't suggesting governmental policies on the L
colonies (and then goes on to do just that) he does point out that in a
lot of ways you are talking about a pretty controlled environment by
simple necessity.
The time frame of where the idea comes from is interesting; after the
counterculture communes of the late 1960s flopped and were looked back
upon as a great romantic dream that never panned out.
If you can't make it work in the real world...then build a new
world...literally, in this case. ;-)

Pat

Yep, there it is. My mind must have glossed over it and focused on
his "principles and goals" back in the first few chapters.

See, this is why it's good to ask questions!

Greg D. Moore (Strider) schrieb:
"Matthias Warkus" wrote in message
...
Hop David schrieb:
Orbital structures like the proposed Bigelow hotels would be inadequate
for long stays as gravity is needed to maintain health. Crew rotations
are very expensive so you want to make them infrequent.
People have held out in zero-g space stations for more than one year
without serious health problems AFAIK.


Yes and no. Long-term stays require extensive exercise while in orbit (on
the order of 2 hours a day).

If we start to build SPS and the like, almost certainly some form of
rotating stations (or at least sleeping quarters) will be built.

I'd think it cheaper to let people live in zero-g and put two hours of
mandatory daily exercise into their contracts.

mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de

"Mike Combs" wrote in message
...

While they might not feature in The High Frontier, O'Neill did oversee
later studies which discussed the very type of structures you're proposing
for the startup of the program.

One such study just got uploaded to the web:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1980-industry.htm

There were some proposals for small, simple habitats which rotated for
gravity for space manufacturing centers, but I note that this one features a
0-G habitat and assumes regular rotations to Earth.

This study mentions that 90% of the raw material for a SPS could be supplied
by the moon. A later study by SSI said that with a design optimized for use
of lunar materials, that percentage could be boosted to 99%.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

"Hop David" wrote in message
...

Nyrath has mentioned recent research on tolerance to angular velocity. It
indicates humans can tolerate higher rpms if transition is gradual. 4 as
opposed to 1 rpm would mean a sixteen fold difference in radius length.

Seems to suggest that Winkler was being overly-conservative when he insisted
that anything over 1 RPM would be a mistake.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

"Johnny1a" wrote in message
ups.com...

So which is the lesser engineering/scientific challenge: full-bore
O'Neill Habitats, or using tethers to improve the rotation rate of
paired hotels?

I love O'Neill habitats with a purple passion, but the latter is doubtless
the lesser challenge.

It's a question of whether the goal is to house transient workers for
limited durations, or to settle space.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

"Damien Valentine" wrote in message
ups.com...

Yes, sir, but the number of people we've had living on a semi-
permanent basis in space at any one time is...maybe three orders of
magnitude lower. It does seem like a rather tall order.

A rather tall order for a rather tall society which we assumed we were
living in, given that we had just landed men on the moon. Sigh.

Thank you, I am interested! That was what I was thinking when I
closed the book: "If you already have a Moon base funneling resources
to a 2,000-man, 30,000-ton construction station, why not just use that
to build an SPS instead of building what amounts to an even bigger
construction station?" I don't suppose you have any references/links
I could study?

http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1980-industry.htm
The above is a summary. The other parts can be found he
http://www.nss.org/settlement/manufa...ibrary.htm#MIT

Yeah, past a point, O'Neill was happy to concede that nobody would start
thinking about large, Earthlike habitats until the
making-SPS-from-space-materials business was well into the black.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

"Damien Valentine" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 2, 9:03 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

If I decide to secretly drill a hole in the ground here on
Earth, its unlikely the whole population of Jamestown, ND will
suffocate; that wouldn't be the case on a space habitat. This sounds
like a perfect set-up for something a lot more like a fascist state than
a libertarian paradise.

Pat

I see what you're saying, but curiously, that wasn't something that
O'Neill brought up. How many editions was "High Frontier" printed
in? Are you reading the same one as I am?

He can't be talking about The High Frontier, or any other book where the
author knows what he's talking about, as any such hole would still only mean
a blow-down time of many days (or weeks). Nobody's going to kill a large
population that way.

A mad bomber might manage to blow out a window pane or two (if he could get
at them). That's still a blow-down time measured in days; plenty of time to
implement repairs, and no cause for immediate evacuation.

So no, the logic is neither straightforward nor ironclad that "living beyond
the Earth" = "certain fascism".

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

"Hop David" wrote in message
...

Most asteroids are quite massive. Altering their orbits for earth capture
is not possible with plausible near future rockets or mass drivers.

Perhaps, but we needn't bring back the entire asteroid. Bringing back a
dislodged fragment or perhaps an enormous bag of loose regolith could get
orbital industries off to a fine start.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

Jim Davis wrote:
Let's get you on record here, Jonathan. You predict the 2008 Olympics
will not happen because of extreme air pollution. Fair enough?



Around a year back, he was going on about some democratic revolution
happening in China during the Olympics IIRC.
This is a interesting fixation on one sports event or country.

Pat