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Science Of Space Colonization

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The Science of Space Colonization Planet Earth is not going to last forever. Sooner or later the human race will have to look for somewhere else to call home. Of course, this will not be the case for an extreme amount of time; nevertheless, scientists have already started to examine various options for possible space colonization. Sending a colony into space is no small task, so there are loads of problems and obstacles that humanity will need to hurdle to do this successfully. In order for humanity to permanently create settlements outside of Earth’s atmosphere, there needs to be advancements in many different areas of science and technology. If humanity decides that there is a specific planet that they want to colonize, then the first question …show more content…

Cameron Smith, an anthropologist at Portland State University, said that an interstellar colony should start out with at least 20,000 to 40,000 people , so the first priority when deciding how to travel to our new colony should be the safety and comfort of at least that many people (Wall). The size of the potential spaceship will have to be big enough to comfortably support a population of this size and all the supplies needed to keep them alive, which is no small task in space. There would need to be some sort of protections from solar radiation and asteroid fields built into the ship as well. Not only will the ship have to keep the passengers alive, but it will have to be able to get them to their location in a timely manner. At the fastest speed by a spacecraft ever recorded, it would take approximately 19,000 years to travel to the nearest star (Williams). This leaves only a couple of possibilities: settle on a planet inside our solar system, find a way to vastly increase the speed of this ship, send multiples generations of families who are all willing to die in space, or develop a sort of …show more content…

Similar to space transportation, these space stations would have many elements needed to make the habitat safe and comfortable for human life. A NASA report mentions that most of the designs for these stations are expected to be approximately one half to a few kilometers across while the entire station rotates around its axis to generate Earth-like gravity with enough mass on the outer hull to protect from solar radiation and meteorites (Globus). These designs would allow for sustainable life, but unless this settlement wants to live solely on supply shuttles from Earth, then it will need to be self-sustaining. That same NASA report says, “Each settlement must be an independent biosphere. All oxygen, water, wastes, and other materials must be recycled endlessly.” (Globus). Even after successfully planning a thriving space settlement, there is still the question of where, in space, the settlement should be located. There is a point in space where the gravitational attraction between the Earth, the sun, and the moon all balance out called the Lagrangian Point (Hadhazy). This point would be close enough to allow supply runs and communication with Earth, and it would still be close enough to the moon if it was necessary to travel there to mine resources. Settlements in space could also be used as a baby step toward the

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