In his story “Male Strikebreaker” (1954) that I just finished re-reading, Isac Asimov proposes an inhabitable asteroid; a 50-mile barely spherical asteroid could offer an useful area of 56.000.000 square miles, if it were excavated and made into “living levels” of 50 feet each. This corresponds to the same amount of dry land on Earth. It is a vastness. You could have big farms, fields, big cities, etc.

Some scientists, like Carl Sagan, have presented similar ideas. In “Pale Blue Dot” Sagan gets to state that it will actually become inevitable, once the “Spatials” (the people living in planetary colonies) decide to live apart from the rest of mankind, hidden in the dark outskirts of the solar system. Carl Sagan says that the asteroid people would follow a distinct evolutionary path and that any dispute(*) between the spatials and Earth would be solved in favor of the space people, in account of the liberty they would have in the space environment, their superior technology, etc.

But I personally think such ideas are equivocated.

Living in an asteroid and having technological and supremacy over the rest of mankind will necessarily require huge amounts of energy. I can’t see what would provide it.

Fusion? For fusion you need water, both as combustible and cooler. Fusion will work fine for long time in a water planet as Earth. For how much time can it sustain life in the limited environment of an asteroid? The spatials would need a constant inflow of imported water. This would reduce dramatically any independence and supremacy they would have as masters of space. Not to mention the costs (actually, this would make our dependence from the Saudi’s oil look like a child’s game)

Sunlight? At the typical Oort asteroid distance the Sun cannot provide energy.

And there’s the question of food. Can they subsist only on artificial food? Is it possible to synthesize food directly from the chemicals? Wouldn’t there be the need of at least a basic biological chain food? How to maintain a basic biological (vegetable) layer from which food can be synthesized, without energy? Or will they also have to breed cows, fishes, chicken…?

And there’s the question of the waste, which would also require great amount of energy to be recycled.

Even if they managed to maintain a sustainable development there’s the question of entropy, the losses in the processes which would turn necessary constant influx of imported goods.

The binomial food/energy conspires against the asteroid colonization, and I can’t see any solution within my limited horizon. Any ideas on this subject?

(*) I don’t think there will be any military dispute by the time people get to the asteroids. The mankind’s “animus belli” will be necessarily extinct long before.

Well, as for the dependence on water, that's an easily solved one if you have the technology and effective control of the solar system. Go grab chunks of ice from Saturn's rings. Go siphon off some from Europa's oceans. Grab a passing comet. Lot's of H20 out there. You just have to be able to go get it.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Well, there's an obvious solution to all of those problems.


Just threaten to drop extremely large rocks on Earth unless they give us what we want [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

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For air and water, you'll need to make sure the place is sealed tight so you have a completely closed system.

Solar energy would be plentiful if you chose an asteroid within the Earth-Mars zone.

For light and heat, you could deploy mirrors to concentrate light into tunnels. This would allow you to grow crops.

I think this colony would be in a far more precarious home than folks on Earth. 1 bomb and POOF no more air.

Yeah, I'm not sure why you mention the "Oort asteroid distance," Argos.

We're assuming that the space people don't want to live among the ordinary people based on Earth, or about the vicinity. It includes the asteroid belt. They really want to be apart, very far away.

That's Asimov proposition I mentioned and Sagan's theory on the colonization of the Oort cloud objects.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2002-09-04 13:33 ]</font>

We know (or suppose) that the objects in the Oort cloud (if such a thing exists) are separated by long distances. And we know that they are small and dark. Thus, spotting an Oort object will require detection capabilities approaching the magic. This will make a challenge to obtain raw material from passing asteroids and comets. Even a “passing” asteroid will be very far, so the question of the costs still demands a solution. Remember that fuel is included in the general shortage afflicting them (another phantom to haunt their possible military pretensions).

This leads me into thinking that we Earthlings will have a glorious common life, all gathered around the central solar system, having outposts like Mars, Titan, Europa, to satisfy our needs. And this pattern will be repeated over and over in the different solar systems, with different civilizations, what makes me conclude that there’s no such thing as living in a hiding place. The problem of the energy will prevent the colonization of any outer solar system, as long as we’re not talking about God’s Solar System.

PS. It’s interesting. When you get to Uranus’ orbit, after a long journey, you’re just half way to Pluto. Does it tell you something?

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of an oort colony. You don't get solar energy, but the objects out there might be well-stocked with yummy H isotopes for fusion.

Make your own sun [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

But how do you do to get those H isotopes? As I mentioned, objects in the Oort cloud, your immediate neighbours, are scattered in a huge volume of space, and they're small and elusive. You have to detect them and then go to grab them, two difficult things to accomplish when you're at the limit of your capacity.

I dunno. I wouldn't call Hale-Bopp's big brother "little" to his face [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Yeah, the idea of grabbing neighboring chunks for energy is far-fetched out there. I was thinking more along the lines of living in a big chunk.

You might even consider it a mobile home. You could use fusion power to jet ions of your home out and deliver yourself to an even better hiding place.

How's that for interstellar trailer trash? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

make your own sun? in a 56,000,000(what ever the figure) square mile area you're gonna shove a sun????? you'll be burnt to a crisp befor you have time to pi$$ yourself!
the best solution i think would be to pik an asteroid that has an eliptical orbit(oddly like planet X cept this would exist, or maybe hale bopp) and as you near the sun collect all the posible energy you can and make sure its enough to sustain the life for the rest of the orbit untill the next sun pass. of course humans won't be able to do this because we use more than we have and twice what we actually need, and unless we start changing our ways soon this will only ever be a dream dreamt by the very few, never to be true!

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its amazing how in the space of a few months, the memory can be serverly damaged, and all that you once knew is now hearsay and you know.... notmuch.

That would be ok. The only thing is that this way the spatials are back to the problem of getting too close to the inner planets of the solar system. And they definetely don't want this. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Also, im not sure if an Oort object will make more than one pass through the inner solar system in a reasonable time span.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2002-09-05 08:20 ]</font>

Even after solving the construction and engineering problems, to live and work in an asteroid, one would still have to address the problem of low gravity. Standing on Eros (which NEAR explored recently,) one would only have to toss a ball about 22 mph to achieve escape velocity. This, and much lower gravity on even smaller worlds would make walking around seem not unlike wading up to your neck in a swimming pool on earth. (It would be hard to stick to the floor.)

On the other hand, an automated "robot" base on several asteroids (with occasional human visitors) would be an exciting scientific alternative, and would avoid long-term negative health effects.

Ok. But I think this can be overcome by excavating the inner space of an adequately rotating asteroid and building the "floor" of the surfaces in an averted fashion, outside in. You would not be standing *on* the surface of the astroid, with your head pointing the stars. You'd be living *inside* the asteroid, standing with your head pointed to its core. This would provide you with artificial gravity generated by rotation. Outside, *on* the surface, it would be the realm of science, with all imaginable instruments and detectors installed. The downside is that this would work only in the "tropical" region of the planetoid, closer to its "equator". As you moved to the poles gravity would decrease constantly.

A. Clarke articulated this idea in "Rendezvous with Rama" (is that the title in English?). The difference is that Rama is a Cylinder and not a spheroid, as we expect an asteroid to be.

One could take advantage of this situation. It would be nice to have living and leisure sectors in the tropical regions and factories, energy generation facilities, etc (more leisure sectors), at the poles. Low gravity would allow for many interesting industrial applications.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2002-09-05 16:51 ]</font>

Yes -- excellent book. I read it as a youngster and have to credit it with much of my interest in sci-fi. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

OUCH! You'd want to pack a LOT of sunscreen, eh? No, I think the colony's version of the sun would be a much smaller fusion reactor. Get the fuel from the icy asteroid itself. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I wonder if fish would thrive in low-g. Maybe the poles are a good place for fish and kelp farms? Water should be plentiful in an oort body. There would need to be a fan to keep the water circulating. Otherwise perhaps oxygen bubbles on the kelp leaves would just stick there and suffocate them!

Food for thought [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Also used by Fred Pohl in his "Heechee" novels for the basic layout of the Gateway Asteroid. Had the added feature of being in a
"Holman Orbit" 90 degrees off from the ecliptic. Hard to find, hard to get to. Just what a "spatial" might want.

D.

If it's so, then forget about the energy restrictions.

Measures would have to be taken to deal with this problem, doubtlessly.

Yes. That would be a perfect solution to their misanthropy. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]