TERM PAPER

on

SPACE COLONISATION

Submitted to

AMITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

Guided By: Ms. Bijalakshmi Panda Submitted By: A.Abhiram

Name of Faculty Guide: Ms. Bijalakshmi Panda Name of the Student:A.Abhiram

Department: Chemistry Enrolment. No: A2305209088
ASET. Roll No: 9088
Department & Section: 3 CSE-2(x)

Amity University, Uttar Pradesh

 Acknowledgement

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my project

guide Ms. Bijalakshmi Panda . I was privileged to experience a sustained
enthusiastic and involved interest from her side. This fueled my enthusiasm
even further and encouraged me to boldly step into what was a totally dark and
unexplored expanse before us.

I express my special thanks to Mrs. Balvinder Shukla for

extending her support.

My deep sense of gratitude to my family, friends and well

wishers without whom this project would be a distant reality.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the ASET staff members and Amity
school of engineering, in general, for extending a helping hand at every juncture
of need.

I will work harder and will produce more good work in near
future.

A.Abhiram
 Certificate by the faculty
guide

This is to certify that Mr. A.ABHIRAM,student of B. Tech. in

CSE Department has carried out the work presented in the
project of the term paper entitle “SPACE COLONISATION” as
a part of First year programme of Bachelor of Technology in
“CSE” from Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity
University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh under my supervision.

Name & Signature of the faculty Guide

Deptt. Of Applied Sciences
ASET, Noida.
Table of contents
 Introduction

 Idea of space colonisation

 Reasons for space colonisation

 Space colonisation

 Definition

 Physical properties of space

 Requirements for space colonisation

 Materials

 Energy

 Transportation

 Communication

 Life support

 Planetary locations

 Methodology

 Discussion

 Few recent articles about space colonisation

  Some famous plans of space colonisation

 Reference

Introduction

Myself A.Abhiram worked for nearly 3 months to complete this term paper. I
really very much happy to take this kind of topic.

Going in to this topic space colonisation which is like a myth before but not
now....many countries are putting their ideas on this topic.

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread
into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm
an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

Now we are going in to the actual topic...

IDEA OF SPACE COLONISATION

Would you believe that the idea of space colonisation actually came from a novel.
Yes you have to believe this.
The history of the idea of space colonization extends back into myths and legends of ancient
times, but the first account of an actual space colony appeared in 1869 when Edward Everett
Hale's novel, Brick Moon, described how a colony in space happened by accident.

In 1977 O’Neill published The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space an

exposition that laid out the technical and cultural dimensions of space colonization. O’Neill
went on to become chief spokesman for the merits of expanding humankind’s ecological
range to include the orbital space around Earth. He imagined and developed detailed plans for
autonomous encapsulated ecosystems, each a mile or so in diameter and housing
communities of from one thousand to up to fifty thousand inhabitants.

REASONS FOR SPACE COLONIZATION

If man can populate the universe to a density of just one person per cubic light year, then, over
the next 100 billion years, we can enjoy some 10-to-the-40th-power man-years. This is very
conservative. From energy considerations the universe may be able to support as many as 10-
to-the-60th man-years. We have used up about a trillion so far, leaving us over 9.99 x 10-to-
the-59th man-years of productivity and happiness.

The bridge to space will have to be crossed, and

better sooner than
later.

The point to be emphasized here is that to outlaw fission reactors, or to find another
method of waste disposal that is 100.00% reliable, would ultimately cost the society more
money and resources than it'd take to set up a colony. With backup colonies elsewhere, we
can still use fission reactors and take chances with present (but still very highly reliable)
methods of waste disposal.

The radioactive waste disposal illustration of course also applies to the SST, genetic research,
mass vaccinations, etc. The overriding concern is that mankind is presently in the unfavorable
position of taking shortcuts, yet not having parallel backup civilizations to carry on, thus
almost insuring the death of the human race in the next 10 or 100 years.

PARTIAL LIST OF REASONS FOR COLONIZATION

 The "universal law" that civilizations destroy themselves just before they achieve the
capability of colonizing another world might generally be valid. But we are extremely lucky
that earth has an unusually large satellite, nearby, allowi. These few decades could allow us to
break this law.
 We have shown that man may well be the only life in the universe ever to reach our level
of reason and technology. We must protect this possibly unique life from self-destruction.
 Even if we are not the only intelligent form of life, we must leave the earth so as to
assume our rightful place in the universe, to contribute and to learn what we can, and to
provide backup colonies to protect our form of life.
 Unemployment will decrease, welfare payments decrease, tax receipts increase, happiness
increase. The economy will finally revive.

SPACE COLONISATION

DEFINITTION:
Space colonisation is the concept of permanent autonomous (self-
sufficient) human habitation of locations outside Earth. It is a major theme in science fiction,
as well as a long-term goal of various national space programs.

While many people think of space colonies on the Moon or Mars, others argue that the first
colonies will be in orbit. Several design groups at NASA and elsewhere have examined
orbital colony feasibility. They have determined that there are ample quantities of all the
necessary materials on the Moon and Near Earth Asteroids, that solar energy is readily
available in very large quantities, and that no new scientific breakthroughs are necessary,
although a great deal of engineering would be required.

It is essential to know the physical properties of space to colonise it. So,here i

am going to discuss physical properties of space

Physical Properties of Space

The physical properties of space are rich in paradoxes. Space seems empty but contains
valuable resources of energy and matter and dangerous fluxes of radiation. Space seems
featureless but has hills and valleys of gravitation. Space is harsh and lifeless but offers
opportunities for life beyond those of Earth. In space, travel is sometimes easier between
places far apart than between places close together.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF SPACE

For the resources of space to be tapped safely, conveniently and with minimum drain on the
productive capabilities of the colonists and Earth, the peculiarities of the configuration of
space must be understood.

Planets and Moons: Deep Gravity Valleys

Gravitation gives a shape to apparently featureless space; it produces hills and valleys as
important to prospective settlers in space as any shape of earthly terrain was to terrestrial
settlers. In terms of the work that must be done to escape into space from its surface, each
massive body, such as the Earth and the Moon, sits at the bottom of a completely encircled
gravitational valley. The more massive the body, the deeper is this valley or well. The Earth's
well is 22 times deeper than that of the Moon. Matter can be more easily lifted into space
from the Moon than from the Earth, and this fact will be of considerable importance to
colonists in deciding from where to get their resources.

SOLAR RADIATION: AN ABUNDANT AND ESSENTIAL SOURCE OF ENERGY

Earth's atmosphere this energy flows more steadily and more intensely from the Sun than
Although apparently empty, space is in fact filled with radiant energy. Beyond that which
penetrates to the surface of the Earth. Through one square meter of space facing the Sun pass
1390 W of sunlight; this is nearly twice the maximum of 747 W striking a square meter
normal to the Sun at the Earth's surface. Since the Earth does not view the Sun
perpendicularly and is dark for half of each day, a square meter of space receives almost 7.5
times the sunlight received by an average square meter on the whole of the Earth. Here it
compares the wavelength distribution of the Sun's energy as seen from above the Earth's
atmosphere with that seen at the surface of the Earth and shows that not only is the intensity
of sunlight greater in space, but also there are available in space many wavelengths that are
filtered out by the Earth's atmosphere.
It is important for the colonization of space that an effective way be found to use this solar
energy.

Requirements for space colonisation:

The planets of the solar system are major loci of material resources, but they are mostly very
distant from prospective colonies, and all sit at the bottoms of deep gravitational wells. The
effort to haul material off the planets is so great as to make the other sources seem more
attractive.

Of course, if a planet is nearby and is rich in resources, a colony might find the effort
justified. Consequently, the Earth could be an important source of material to a colony in its
vicinity, especially of the elements hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen that are not available in
sufficient amounts elsewhere near Earth.

Asteroids offer some interesting possibilities. They have very shallow gravitational wells;
some come closer to Earth than Mars; and some asteroids may contain appreciable amounts
of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen as well as other useful minerals .Moving in well
determined orbits which could be reached relatively easily, the asteroids may become
exceptionally valuable resources, especially those that contain appreciable amounts of water
ice and carbonaceous chondrite.

• Materials: Launching materials from Earth is very expensive, so bulk materials

should come from the Moon or Near-Earth Objects (NEOs - asteroids and comets
with orbits near Earth) where gravitational forces are much less, there is no
atmosphere, and there is no biosphere to damage. Our Moon has large amounts of
oxygen, silicon and metals, but little hydrogen, carbon, or nitrogen. NEOs contain
substantial amounts of metals, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. NEOs also contain some
nitrogen, but not necessarily enough to avoid major supplies from Earth.

• Transportation: This is the key to any space endeavor. Present launch costs are
very high, $2,000 to $ 14,000 per pound from Earth to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). To
settle space we need much better launch vehicles and must avoid serious damage to
the atmosphere from the thousands, perhaps millions, of launches required. One
 possibility is airbreathing hypersonic air/spacecraft under development by NASA and
others.
• Communication:

Compared to the other requirements, communication is relatively

easy. Much of the current terrestrial communications already pass through satellites.

• Life support:

People need air, water, food and reasonable temperatures to

survive. On Earth a large complex biosphere provides these. In space settlements, a
relatively small, closed system must recycle all the nutrients without "crashing." The
Biosphere II project in Arizona has shown that a complex, small, enclosed, man-made
biosphere can support eight people for at least a year, although there were many
problems.

Survival
Someday the Earth will become uninhabitable. Before then humanity must move off the
planet or become extinct. One potential near term disaster is collision with a large comet or
asteroid. Such a collision could kill billions of people. Large collisions have occured in the
past, destroying many species. Future collisions are inevitable, although we don't know when.

PLANETARY LOCATIONS

Mars Is The New World

Among extraterrestrial bodies in our solar system, Mars is singular in that it possesses all the
raw materials required to support not only life, but a new branch of human civilization.
The Moon is also deficient in about half the metals of interest to industrial society (copper,
for example), as well as many other elements of interest such as sulfur and phosphorus. Mars
has every required element in abundance. Moreover, on Mars, as on Earth, hydrologic and
volcanic processes have occurred that are likely to have consolidated various elements into
local concentrations of high-grade mineral ore. Indeed, the geologic history of Mars has been
compared to that of Africa, with very optimistic inferences as to its mineral wealth implied as
a corollary. In contrast, the Moon has had virtually no history of water or volcanic action,
with the result that it is basically composed of trash rocks with very little differentiation into
ores that represent useful concentrations of anything interesting.

But the biggest problem with the Moon, as with all other airless planetary bodies and
proposed artificial free-space colonies, is that sunlight is not available in a form useful for
growing

crops. A single acre of plants on Earth requires four megawatts of sunlight power, a square
kilometer needs 1,000 MW. The entire world put together does not produce enough electrical
power to illuminate the farms of the state of Rhode Island, that agricultural giant.

But on Mars there is an atmosphere thick enough to protect crops grown on the surface from
solar flare. Therefore, thin-walled inflatable plastic greenhouses protected by unpressurized
UV-resistant hard-plastic shield domes can be used to rapidly create cropland on the surface.

There are a number of reasons that the Moon is the best place to start space colonization, but
the basis of most of them are its proximity to the Earth. Most of these stem from the cost of
access to the Moon. There are also important engineering, economic and political advantages
to starting colonization with the Moon. Before discussing the advantages of the Moon, let’s
analyze what a full-court press for Mars colonization looks like.

There are many supporting reasons to go to the Moon. Consider three categories of
justification: engineering, economics, and politics.
 The Moon may make a Mars
colony feasible or desirable, thus
enabling three branches of
humanity.

Methodology

Space colonization is desirable because of the hope it offers humanity. A sense

of the limits of Earth has been heightened in recent years by growing awareness
of the delicate ecological balance of the planet, its finite resources and its
burgeoning human population. The sense of closure, of limits, is oppressive to
many people. In America, growth has been the vehicle of rapid and often
progressive change; it has been the source of opportunity for millions of people
and has played an important role in fostering American democracy and political
freedoms. To have opportunities restricted and to be forced to devise political
institutions to allocate equitably, resources insufficient to meet demand, are
unpleasant prospects. Space offers a way out, with new possibilities of growth
and new resources. Space offers a new frontier, a new challenge, and a hope to
humanity, much as the New World offered a frontier, a challenge, and a hope to
Europe for more than 4 centuries.

Space also offers riches: great resources of matter and energy. Their full extent
and how they might be used are not altogether clear today. It is likely that solar
energy collected in space, converted to electricity, and beamed to Earth would
be of great value. The manufacture of the satellite power stations to bring this
energy to Earth and of other commercial activities that use the abundant solar
energy, the high vacuum, and the weightlessness available in space, might bring
substantial returns to investors. It seems possible that the historic
industrialization of Earth might expand and go forward in space without the
unpleasant impacts on the Earth's environment that increasingly trouble
mankind. On the other hand, the potential of space must not detract from efforts
to conserve terrestrial resources and improve the quality of life on Earth.

On the basis of this 10-week study of the colonization of space there seems to
be no insurmountable problems to prevent humans from living in space.
However, there are problems, both many and large, but they can be solved with
technology available now or through future technical advances. The people of
Earth have both the knowledge and resources to colonize space.

It is the principal conclusion of the study group that the United States, possibly
in cooperation with other nations, should take specific steps toward that goal of
space colonisation.

Discussion
The Moon is a very interesting destination in its own right. Being closer to the Earth
creates engineering, economic, and political opportunities. The Moon may make a
Mars colony feasible or desirable, thus enabling three branches of humanity. A lunar
colony can use much more mass imported from Earth and more flexible and capable
engineering.

Few recent articles about space colonisation

The god that failed

by Dwayne Day
Monday, May 18, 2009

Today it’s a little hard to grasp what the world was like in the pre-Internet age without
sounding like grandpa’s stories about having to walk ten miles to school, through raging
snowstorms, uphill, both ways. But there was a time when information was relatively scarce
and either you expended a great deal of effort to gather it, or you relied upon it
serendipitously finding you. Although I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere, my suspicion
is that the first exposure many Americans had to the concept of colonies in space came in the
summer of 1976 when the July issue of National Geographic showed up in their mailboxes.
The issue contained an article by Isaac Asimov about life on a space colony 50 years in the
future.

Asimov’s article, “The Next Frontier?” and illustrated by Pierre Mion, was written as a first-
person account of a visit to an L-5 colony in the far-distant future of 2026. The account is
mostly description: the National Geographicreporter is met by the colony’s director George
Fenton, who shows him around and explains how everything works. Asimov experiences the
gradual onset of simulated gravity as he travels from the arrival hub down a spoke to the
colony’s rim. The colony is nearly 1,800 meters in diameter and houses 10,000 people.
Then of course there is the explanation of how all of this is possible. The manufacturing of
solar power stations to supply Earth is a major economic driver, but “old news” according to
Fenton. Instead, their newest industry is the growing of crystals and the manufacture of
microcomputer circuitry. But, Fenton adds, for a long time to come the primary activity of the
colonists will be building other colonies. Asimov adds that it will be a long time, if ever,
before the population of the colonies exceeds the population of Earth.

Lest anyone think that this article was “science fiction” (the editor placed that term in quotes,
somewhat in the same way that you put a dead fish in a trash bag), a footnote declares that in
only a month’s time NASA would publish a new report: “Space Colonization: A Design
Study”. Clearly, space colonies were a probable part of America’s future.

Yesterday’s tomorrows

One of the common knocks against science fiction stories is that they do a poor job of
predicting the future—critics gloated that the year 2001 came and went and there were no
spinning space stations, only terrorism and falling towers. Of course, the legitimate defense is
that science fiction writers are not trying to predict the future, only tell a story. But in the case
of Asimov’s National Geographicarticle, the famed author was trying to predict what looked
—in that heady bicentennial year—to be a realistic possible future only a few decades away.

The July 1976 issue also included an article titled “Five Noted Thinkers Explore the Future”:
interviews with experts, including Asimov, speculating about the turn of the century, only 25
years away. Their predictions were a mixed bag, but a common theme was a focus on the
future of the city, which many of them thought was good at a time when American cities
were in crisis. New York, after all, had nearly declared bankruptcy a year before.
Future’s past

Although he never said it in his interview or the article, Asimov was writing about the ideas
of an emerging American social movement. His article reflected the influences of people like
Gerard K. O’Neill (who is not mentioned) and the then-exciting concept that normal people
—construction workers, welders, farmers, rabbit-slaughterers—could soon live and work in
space. Pierre Mion’s illustrations of the colony show a gleaming city street that looks much
like a midwestern American city, where the dominant male fashion is the jumpsuit, and
women still wear miniskirts and denim short-shorts.

Within a very short time after Asimov’s article, O’Neill would publish The High Frontier, the
L-5 Society would gain more members, and the pro-space colonization idea would form into
a genuine movement.

But then it died.

Looking back over three decades to a time when this movement was just forming the most
glaring conclusion is that it never really caught on. It never transformed into a true mass
movement with broad appeal, millions of members, elected representatives in the
government, and a clear legislative, social and economic agenda. Why was that?
 Looking back over three decades
to a time when this movement was
just forming the most glaring
conclusion is that it never really
caught on. Why was that?
Of course, many of the movement’s early members
will blame NASA. O’Neill’s space colony vision depended upon cheap spaceflight heralded
by the Space Shuttle, and we all know how that worked out. Certainly, once the shuttles
proved to be cranky and expensive, a lot of the public enthusiasm for space colonization
subsided. Some people stuck with it, and became bitter. Many simply gave up.

The space colonization movement was, at its most basic, a utopian movement. Like all
utopian movements, it had a short-term appeal that was more emotional than logical, and
depended upon people being susceptible to the vision that it promised. It didn’t make many
converts.

Some famous plans of space colonisation

Human Space Colonization: A Reality?

human Reproduction in Space: The imperative for human space exploration

Presented at Less Remote, Satellite conference of the IAC, Glasgow,

September 2008

Human civilization as we recognize it today is established on planet

Earth, in a solar system that is 4.55 billion years old and already half
way through its life.
At 10 billion years the Sun which is a 'Yellow Dwarf Star,' will use up
all its Hydrogen and begin to cool and gradually collapse due to the force
of Gravity. The Energy created by the collapse of the Sun will raise it s
temperature to hundreds of millions of degrees which is hot enough to
start burning the Helium in its core. These higher temperatures will cause
the Sun to expand and change colour, becoming a 'Red Giant Star.'

As the Sun expands, it will destroy Mercury, Venus and possibly the Earth.
Even if our planet is not completely destroyed by the aging sun, its
surface will become dry and inhospitably hot. The familiar and unique
aqueous conditions that have so rarely supported life and our own
evolution will no longer exist. Instead of a lush green, water soaked
world, planet earth will be a hostile, radiation baked, and lifeless
planet and the human race will face its greatest challenge of all time:
its continued survival in an alien universe.
Over the course of 150,000 years [The oldest Homo sapiens, Fossils push
human emergence back to 195,000 years ago, University of Utah Public
Relations, 16-Feb-2005 .

REFERNCE
 The Case for Colonizing Mars
by Robert Zubrin
From Ad Astra July/August 1996

Colonize the Moon before Mars

by Sam Dinkin
Tuesday, September 7, 2004

THE CASE FOR SPACE COLONIZATION -

NOW!
- and why it should be our generation's #1 priority.

by Oscar Falconi

 Colonies in Space
by T. A. Heppenheimer

 http://hawking.org.uk/

 http://www.thespacereview.com