Guide to Space Suburbanization

This is an L5 type.

Space seems exotic, forbidding, and remote, but imagine trying to survive winter without a heated shelter or warm clothing. Our ancestors developed these technologies because they needed room to grow; without them, we would still be confined to narrow areas along the equator, but with them, we could live anywhere in the world. With the right technology, space is just another place for people to live.

from a distance

Actually the real powers are the governments and not science fiction authors. The whole point of government space programs (GSP's) is to deny freedom in space (free space).

GSP's versus Free Space. If you remember the previous sentence, then you know ninety-nine percent of space politics. In case you have already forgotten what that sentence is, I'll repeat it:

GSP's versus Free Space.

Obviously this is a depiction of a terraformed moon of Jupiter because that planet in the sky has a great red spot.

Since the Great Red Spot is in Jupiter's southern hemisphere, this moon must be tilted as much as Uranus or we are in the moon's southern hemisphere or both.

I hear that this project pays terraforming engineers well. Or will pay them well.

Ganymede is in the neighborhood of other notable Jovian moons like Europa (which could harbor an ocean under that ice) and Callisto (which is the best place in the Solar System for an interstellar starport). The upper atmosphere of Jupiter is said to be full of Helium-3. Jupiter is also useful for the slingshot effect in speeding craft on their way to the outer Solar System & beyond and braking craft returning from there. One advantage of living on Ganymede is the gravity. Your muscles are less likely to atrophy here because the gravity is stronger than most moons in the Solar System.

Drawbacks of Ganymede are said to be nasty quakes but at least it does not have volcanic eruptions like Io and the radiation and radio noise from Jupiter may be slightly less. Early in the history of the Solar System, Jupiter failed to become a star or even a brown dwarf. If it had, then the Solar System would have been a double star system. A popular subject in science fiction is lighting up Jupiter.

If engineers lit Jupiter and converted it to a star, then on the positive side all terraformed moons around Jupiter would have better daylight and warmth. On the negative side, any life on Europa would likely be wiped out or have to do some rapid evolving to survive; the Earth might cease to have a night time as we've known it since time immemorial; and that means that nocturnal creatures on Earth would have their cycles screwed up; and most of the ecologists on Earth would be very upset. By the time planetary and stellar engineering became possible, most people on Earth would likely be environmentalists still pissed at us ancestors for leaving them with a used-up planet to repair. Earth might be like Dune (Arrakis). Would lighting Jupiter screw up efforts to reverse climate change on Earth and restoring Earth to pristine condition?

No survey of futurescapes is complete without a glass dome. Of course it will not be glass as we know it. Note the polarized sunglasses effect on the sunward side.

It is said that Venus has a bigger and denser atmosphere than Earth despite having less gravity to hold an atmosphere and being closer to the Sun which blew away any atmosphere Mercury had. The good news is that Venus could theoretically be terraformed far faster than Mars. Mars needs a runaway greenhouse effect to warm up that cold planet -- followed by using plants (flora and vegetation) to convert the carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. Venus is much simpler. A nuclear winter by either nukes or smacking it with an asteroid or both. Obviously not a dirty nuke or we'll have to wait millennia before the radiation levels were low enough to make it habitable.

There are other options. Nasty nanotechnology with unforseen consequences. Or my favorite which is using biotechnology to let microbes do the work as they did on early Earthl. Though much faster. The atmosphere of Venus is very white and perhaps a color shift might help cool down the planet so that bacteria could do the work of preparing the planet for settlers in a matter of months. Not years. Not decades. Not centuries. The Firefly approach is way too slow.

The right germs could convert much of that superheated atmosphere into cool ocean. Venus is, of course, what Earth will be like if we let the climate change deniers have their way -- runaway greenhouse effect.

This is not Firefly. We cannot destroy the Earth and then move on. We restore the Earth to the paradise it once was and then we will have learned how to create other paradises and Gardens of Eden and utopias out there. We will have earned the right to claim an uninhabited universe.

To paraphrase Firefly, some power in the universe can stop us. Namely, a supercivilization aeons more advanced than us. We can hope that there are no aliens out there but there is nothing we could do if such a supercivilization existed and thought we were vermin. So let's be on our best behavior and stop the foolishness of active SETI and stick to passive SETI. Read up on the two types of SETI. It could save your life.

Obviously not Jupiter (wrong color), Saturn (no rings) Uranus (it's banded and Uranus is featureless), nor Neptune (no blotches).

Therefore, this moon and gas giant must be in a different stellar system. However, atmosphere can shift perceived color so the gas giant could be Jupiter after all.

as in Rendezvous with

If you are really serious about living out there, then I can put you on a registry so that you can either start an SCG and attract members or you can join an existing SCG.

What will be the new construction techniques?

1. spray poly-concrete over mesh or inflatable forms?
2. genetically-engineered buildings that are grown organically?
3. excavation or blasting of underground buildings on the moon, Mars, and Mercury like on Earth?
4. electromagnetic drawing of shapes (think iron filings around a bar magnet) in a specialty chemical mist that is hardened with plastics or new alloys?
5. growing of large crystals for building materials?
6. cut & cover -- bulldozers dig trench and bury spent rocket boosters to make near instant shelters?
7. origami unfolding structures?
8. closing off small diameter but deep craters with metal roof or geodesic dome (like in 2001: a space odyssey)
9. use of memory materials
10. nanotechnology building construction

Except for the presence of aliens (we know there are no aliens), novel series like Sector General by author James White and TV series like Mercy Point on UPN give a hint at what a space hospital might be like.

The web comedy Space Hospital is pretty much useless for illustrative purposes unless it is your intent to die out there.

If you don't believe these companies are real, then use a search engine.