Dynamics of an Earth Ring

(AA Institute) wrote:
[biospheres]

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.

Not quite all of the rubbish apparently:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/1....ap/index.html


Tim
--
Do you want your computer to trust a software vendor more than you?
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

"Paul Blay" wrote:
"AA Institute" wrote ...
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...

No more MAGIC than is required for a colony of 2,000 people in the first
place.

You'd need a *very* big station to be self-sustaining for that many
people. Biosphere 2 (which didn't quite work, they had to pump in
oxygen after a year or so) was enormous and that was to support fewer
than a dozen people. You need to solve the problem of efficiently
getting mass out of the Earth's gravity well before you can even think
about big fancy space stations or mining operations.


Tim
--
Do you want your computer to trust a software vendor more than you?
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

"Tim Auton" wrote in message
...
"Paul Blay" wrote:
No more MAGIC than is required for a colony of 2,000 people in the first
place.

You'd need a *very* big station to be self-sustaining for that many
people. Biosphere 2 (which didn't quite work, they had to pump in
oxygen after a year or so) was enormous and that was to support fewer
than a dozen people.

Only if you want to make it Earth-like - using bio-systems for atmosphere
regeneration and food production would be fairly small by comparison.
Remember that Biosphere 2 tried to recreate the entire biosphere of Earth
and that just isn't necessary.


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

"Tim Auton" wrote ...
"Paul Blay" wrote:
"AA Institute" wrote ...
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...

No more MAGIC than is required for a colony of 2,000 people in the first
place.

You'd need a *very* big station to be self-sustaining for that many
people.

"managing the waste" "self-sustaining"

Greg D. Moore wrote:
"Rhonda Lea Kirk" wrote:

I can't believe I'm posting this.

You're not the only one. :-)

(now knowing far more about Rhonda than I ever
wanted to. :-)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had to write that post five times just to give as
little personal information as possible.

What drives me insane about some of you guys is that
unless...

....let me put it this way: lo those many years ago,
you'd have killfiled Galileo.

Science has a long way to go before it fully and
accurately describes reality and--as we are shown again
and again--all the "proof" in the world can't transform
theory into incontrovertible fact. I'm all for being a
little skeptical about wild ideas, but history
continues to rub our collective noses in the fact that
what we accept today as true and correct is going down
the tubes tomorrow.

rl

"Mighty Krell" wrote in message
k.net...

"Mike Combs" wrote in message

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

Ahh, a MAGIC space station.

Not at all. Chemical processes exist to break nearly anything down to, at
the very least, small, simple molecules like water, CO2, etc. We don't
always use them here on Earth because many of them are energy-intensive, and
it's usually cheaper to just dump the waste somewhere and buy new raw
materials. But in a space habitat, raw materials would cost a lot more than
energy. So there's an economic incentive for breaking down all waste
products for re-use.

Look into super-critical combustion chambers for just one possible process.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the National Non-sequitur Society. We may not make
much sense, but we do like pizza.

"Rhonda Lea Kirk" wrote in message
...
Greg D. Moore wrote:
"Rhonda Lea Kirk" wrote:
I can't believe I'm posting this.
You're not the only one. :-)
(now knowing far more about Rhonda than I ever
wanted to. :-)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had to write that post five times just to give as
little personal information as possible.
What colour are your eyes?

What drives me insane about some of you guys is that
unless...
...let me put it this way: lo those many years ago,
you'd have killfiled Galileo.
I'm for anyone who upsets the church.

[snip]
Grim

"Tim Auton" wrote in message
...
"Paul Blay" wrote:
"AA Institute" wrote ...
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...

No more MAGIC than is required for a colony of 2,000 people in the first
place.

You'd need a *very* big station to be self-sustaining for that many
people. Biosphere 2 (which didn't quite work, they had to pump in
oxygen after a year or so) was enormous and that was to support fewer
than a dozen people. You need to solve the problem of efficiently
getting mass out of the Earth's gravity well before you can even think
about big fancy space stations or mining operations.

There's already a huge amount of mass outside the Earth's gravity well. Most
of the universe, in fact.

Besides, if you had a microscopic size crew, 2,000 wouldn't take up much
more room than 3.
Grim

"AA Institute" wrote in message
om...
Tim Auton wrote in message
. ..
"Mighty Krell" wrote:
[snip]
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.
I hope they have an incinerator licence for that. Who's monitoring the
exhaust?
Grim

"Tim Auton" wrote in message
...

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.

Or as radiation shielding, which we'll need if we're in any orbit higher
than the magnetosphere.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the National Non-sequitur Society. We may not make
much sense, but we do like pizza.