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

Allan Goodall wrote:
>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.

It could well be a smaller capital investment than building
a settlement on a planet. The ideal planet for a settlement
is earthlike but no native life of its own. If it isn't all
that earthlike, you have to terraform it which takes a long
time, or build sealed buildings which won't be much cheaper
than those for an orbital habitat. If it has native life
forms, there will be all kinds of time consuming and costly
experiments/mistakes/disasters. And either way you have to
ship a lot of stuff down the gravity well until it is self
sustaining, although this is a lot cheaper than up.

I like the idea of a habitat forming through accretion of
spaceships rather than being custom built. Big spaceships
for long journeys will be pretty good mini-habitats in
themselves. One of Brians docking facilities could slowly
grow into a habitat as new ships get glued on.

>
>You'd need a _really_ good reason to do it on the incredibly short
>time line offered for the Tuffleyverse, unless the habitat was created
>by aliens.

Yeah, the short timeframe is a problem. The Cherryh universe
has a long period of sublight space travel to build stations
in.

>If you were going to build a space habitat, why wouldn't you do it in
>a star system with a friendly planetary colony and -- presumably -- a
>military presence to defend you?

Maybe because the good planets have been taken already?

>If there are no friendly systems, perhaps you need to rethink the
>whole "easily punctured by missiles" space habitat thing. There's
>always the "religious zealots form a colony" idea, but where did they
>get the money to build a habitat?

Religious zealots need not be poor: look at the Wahabis of
the current period :-(

Rather than religious, make them ideological zealots. Bruce
Sterlings Shaper/Mechanist fiction and GURPS Transhuman Space
both have lots of groups who actively want to live in space
rather than on a planet. Kim Stanley Robinson has some nicer
types in Blue Mars who live in hollowed out asteroids and
the like.

	cheers,
	Hugh
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