Re: [GZG] Habitable solar systems (Was: [GZG] Real Astroplitics)

["john tailby" <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

All of these arguments are good reasons why a system with inhabitable planets would have orbital habitats.

 

They don't answer the original question about why would you build a habitat in a star system with no habitable planet.

 

Reasons why you might build a habitat in a star system with no human planets.

 

Military base

For whatever reason the government thinks it needs a permanent presence in the system. Maybe as a support or layover base for patrol craft.

 

Corporate base

The system contains one or more materials that is sufficiently rare to justify the expense of maintaining a base and interplanetary shipping.

The corporation wants to engage in some very secret (and possibly illegal )research project and needs a facility in a system where no one knows to look. Also if things go wrong there is no contamination of an inhabited system.

 

Colonisation

Maybe there is a planet that could be human habitable once the atmosphere is reengineered. An orbital base could be a useful place to oversee the initial stages of a teraforming process.

 

Prison

Maybe some kind of space prison for really dangerous convicts or dissidents or those with bad dress sense could be exiled to a space station in another solar system. No sense on wasting a habitable planets on convicts. Could be combined with some of the other options above.

 

John

----- Original Message -----

From: Brian Burger

 

On 5/4/06, Allan Goodall <agoodall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> A human habitable *solar system* doesn't need to have human habitable
> *planets*. Any star-faring culture could build large orbital habitats
> around any suitable star.

One question: why would they build it? You'd need to answer that.

Large orbital habitats are going to be a large capital investment.
There would have to be a really good reason you'd spend that kind of
money/resources to pop an orbital habitat around a distant star in a
hostile chunk of the galaxy.

Lots of (most of) the freighters we've seen aren't atmosphere capable - so that means that at some point they transfer their cargo to atmosphere capable craft, or leave it somewhere for further handling. That "somewhere" has to be in orbit; you're going to need workers at your orbital cargo facility, and if there's enough workers, it might be worthwhile building a proper habitat rather than just a space station with hab modules.

Plus, mercentile types might move out to the facility, to be where their cargos are.

Related to freighter design: no matter how good your PSB engines, dragging up and down a gravity well and/or an atmosphere is always going to be more expensive in terms of fuel, time, and wear & tear on your craft. 

I'm not sure what the line between "big orbital cargo yard w/ a population" and "orbital habitat" will be, but busy enough systems will probably support a significant orbital population. Sol system's orbital population probably outstrips most colonial planetary populations massively.

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