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Humans could have an asteroid belt colony in the next 15 years, astrophysicist says

When will humanity achieve an asteroid colony?

  • 2021-2035

    Votes: 10 2.9%

  • 2035-2050

    Votes: 22 6.3%

  • 2050-2075

    Votes: 54 15.4%

  • 2075-2100

    Votes: 38 10.9%

  • After 2100

    Votes: 93 26.6%

  • Never

    Votes: 51 14.6%

  • Ayy lmao

    Votes: 82 23.4%
  • Total voters
    350
Forerunner

Forerunner

Resetufologist
The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
14,640
www.livescience.com

Humans could move to this floating asteroid belt colony in the next 15 years, astrophysicist says

Should we build a 'megasatellite' of human habitats around the dwarf planet Ceres? It's more plausible than it sounds.
www.livescience.com www.livescience.com

WEcSPZvZxGpV7mzJAaCdQj-970-80.jpg.webp


...a new paper published Jan. 6 date to the preprint database arXiv offers a creative counter-proposal: Ditch the Red Planet, and build a gargantuan floating habitat around the dwarf planet Ceres, instead.

In the paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, astrophysicist Pekka Janhunen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki describes his vision of a "megasatellite" of thousands of cylindrical spacecrafts, all linked together inside a disk-shaped frame that permanently orbits Ceres — the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Each of these cylindrical habitats could accommodate upwards of 50,000 people, support an artificial atmosphere and generate an Earth-like gravity through the centrifugal force of its own rotation, Janhunen wrote. (This general idea, first proposed in the 1970s, is known as an O'Neill cylinder).
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But why Ceres? Its average distance from Earth is comparable to that of Mars, Janhunen wrote, making travel relatively easy — but the dwarf planet also has a big elemental advantage. Ceres is rich in nitrogen, which would be crucial in developing the orbiting settlement's atmosphere, Janhunen said (Earth's atmosphere is roughly 79% nitrogen.) Rather than building a colony on the surface of the tiny world — Ceres has a radius roughly 1/13th that of Earth — settlers could utilize space elevators to transfer raw materials from the planet directly up to their orbiting habitats.
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According to Janhunen's proposal, each cylinder of the Ceres megasatellite would produce its own gravity through rotation; each cylindrical habitat would measure about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) long, have a radius of 0.6 miles (1 km) and complete a full rotation every 66 seconds to generate the centrifugal force needed to simulate Earth-like gravity.

A single cylinder could comfortably hold about 57,000 people, Janhunen said, and would be held in place next to its neighboring cylinders through powerful magnets, like those used in magnetic levitation.
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This society of floating, cylindrical utopias may sound a bit outlandish, but it has its proponents. In 2019, Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO and founder of the private space company Blue Origin) spoke at a Washington, D.C., event about the merits of building "O'Neill colonies" similar to the one Janhunen describes here. Bezos was skeptical that such a colony could exist in our lifetime, asking the audience, "How are we going to build O'Neill colonies? I don't know and no one in this room knows."

However, Janhunen is more optimistic. In an email to Live Science, he said that the first human settlers could start heading to Ceres within the next 15 years.
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maximumzero

maximumzero

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,927
New Orleans, LA
Humanity is like thirty years behind where it should be in regards to Space colonization, which is a real bummer the more you sit and think about it.

Carl Sagan would be so disappointed in us.
 
Bear

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,884
We just had a pandemic effectively shut down society for a year (and probably at least another 6 months). How is this guy really projecting that far out? Seems like a big reach.
 
killerrin

killerrin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,238
Toronto
To be fair. There has been nothing stopping us from having a full Moon Colony and a fully fleshed out Space Mining and Manufacturing Industry made up of captured asteroids. Well except for the fact that nobody wants to actually fund the initial investment into building them.

Technologically speaking though. We've had all the technology we'd need to do these things for half a century now.
 
ChaosXVI

ChaosXVI

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,851
Sasake Bossmang!

I feel like I read articles like this all of the time, for the last 20 years or so, and it just never goes anywhere.
 
Aurica

Aurica

音楽オタク - Comics Council 2020
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
23,496
A mountain in the US
I finished The Future of Humanity a couple months ago, and Michio Kaku doesn't expect belt colonies for significantly longer, I believe. I find it hard to imagine that could happen in 15 years.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,944
Nonsense. We can't even realistically expect a Moon colony in 15 years and that is exponentially easier.

Those 70s style illustrations are great though
 
Midramble

Midramble

Force of Habit
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
10,462
San Francisco
Have an O'Neill cylinder to Ceres in 15 years when we can hardly build things a quarter of that size in that time on Earth?

Should be a fun paper to read
 
Palette Swap

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,213
Astrophysicist with a pet project rides on the coattails of popular sci-fi, news at 10.

Let's hope there isn't a guy somewhere who's researching extraterrestrial ancient goo, okay
 

Reluctantly Gumblesmug

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,284
15 years feels a little sporty to me. Getting reliable life support systems and recurring supply missions to support all that infrastructure is not possible in that time frame imo
 
Elfgore

Elfgore

Member
Mar 2, 2020
4,580
I have to ask, but why? The world will probably be a very different place in 2036, but this sounds absurdly expensive and dangerous to do it just because you can.

ChaosXVI said:
I feel like I read articles like this all of the time, for the last 20 years or so, and it just never goes anywhere.
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100%. I read a non-fiction book about future tech when I was eight or so, so early 2000s. Full-time moon base estimated by 2015 and every car would be self-driving.
 
Hecht

Hecht

Blue light comes around
Administrator
Oct 24, 2017
9,735
So a Ceres Station, then? Perhaps we could do research there, and nothing bad will happen.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,142
We could barely coordinate COVID19 globally.

Neoliberalism run amok has hollowed out institutions.
 
HStallion

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
The tech is most likely there or at least near to but its more about having the will, and the funding, to set it all up and make it happen. Who know's, maybe we'll pull our collective heads out of our asses and actually work together to get it done.
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
These projections typically believe politics is frictionless and only raw technological capacity matters.

That said, I want to believe. Fuck the inners, for Beltalowda!
 
kyle mechlachlan

kyle mechlachlan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,298
I fully expect something like this to happen. And I fully expect it to be corporate owned. People like Elon are going to push hard to make this happen because he see's an opportunity to live his sci-fi fascist dream.
 
Eoin

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
Midramble said:
Have an O'Neill cylinder to Ceres in 15 years when we can hardly build things a quarter of that size in that time on Earth?
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The article says:

Janhunen's proposal suggests that the megasatellite's first cluster of orbiting habitats could be completed 22 years after mining begins on Ceres.
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So it's not that he's saying that the whole proposed O'Neill infrastructure could be built in 15 years, but that the process could be started in 15 years. Year 1 of that would probably look like a tiny habitat on Ceres providing cramped living quarters for maybe half a dozen humans overseeing a largely robotic operation.

15 years is optimistic even for that, and it's a stretch for a whole bunch of reasons (primarily political and economic ones) but technologically it might be feasible.
 

Deleted member 13496

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,409
Half the population thinks 5G is a Bill Gates manufactured death ray and you think we're building a fucking space colony? lol

Humanity in 2021 is a fucking mess and an enormous waste of potential. We ain't coming together for shit any time soon.
 
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