Colonies in Space
by T.A. Heppenheimer · first published 1977
11mentions
2recommended by
4HN commenters
2009–2021first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2012–2026The high frontier
Gerard K. O'Neill
Recommended by 10 · mentioned by 2010 recommend · 20 mention10 recommend · 2010 recommend
2008–2026Rendezvous with Rama
Arthur C. Clarke
Recommended by 51 · mentioned by 9651 recommend · 96 mention51 recommend · 9651 recommend
2008–2025The case for Mars
Robert Zubrin
Recommended by 18 · mentioned by 2918 recommend · 29 mention18 recommend · 2918 recommend
2007–2026Ringworld
Larry Niven
Recommended by 51 · mentioned by 15951 recommend · 159 mention51 recommend · 15951 recommend
Speed is not so much an issue if you're trying to stay long term. If you can find it, look up T. A. Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space. The "Up on the Farm" chapter was fun to read, and it has a pretty extensive set of references. Farmed Tilapia might also be an option, though I'm not clear on how flexible their diet is.
on “Elon Musk: Vegetarians only on Mars colony” ↗Also, TA Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space has a dandy compilation chapter on research on agriculture in enclosed environments. ("Up on the farm") http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/colonies_chap0... Most of what's talked about in…
on “Elon Musk: Vegetarians only on Mars colony” ↗…tether in orbit -- could lower one payload into the atmosphere and boost another into space, at no net energy cost. A pretty good, if very old, popular intro to this kind of thinking was Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space (free on the web now). Mars seems unpromising because it's at the bottom of a gravity well, has an inconvenient atmosphere, should be preserved for scientific research while there's still a chance of…
on “Bill Gates questions worth of space exploration for improving humanity (2013)” ↗I'm pretty sure I also originally saw these images in another 1977 book I checked out from the library as a kid, Colonies in Space: A Comprehensive and Factual Account of the Prospects for Human Colonization of Space, by T. A. Heppenheimer. Here's a link to a 2017 reprint edition: https://www.amazon.com/Colonies-Space-Comprehensive-Prospect...…
on “Space colonies of the future as imagined by NASA in the 1970s” ↗…O'Neil space colonies would be in the tens of trillions of dollars, minimum. That's on the scale of the entire US GDP, if not more. As for your observation "a lot more than actually did [happen]": Colonies in Space is one of my benchmarks for rates of technological change that didn't happen. I'd anticipated that that could well be my future, but a decade and a half past when it was supposed to be a reality, it…
on “Space Colony Art from the 1970s” ↗…with mineral ash, which is suitable for use in fertilizer. The process also tends to demolish most toxic chemicals, though it can't do anything with substances like heavy metals. (I read about this in Colonies in Space by T.A. Heppenheimer in the late 1970's, when my dad brought back that book as a gift for me from a trip to New York.) If the Omniprocessor can accomplish the same thing without high pressure hardware,…
on “From Poop to Potable” ↗…colonisation, notably contrasting planetary (or lunar) surfaces with orbiting space platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill The background is discussed in T.A. Heppenheimer's 1977 book Colonies in Space, chapter 2: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-2-our-life-i... O'Neill himself published The High Frontier in 1976. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colon... https://archive.org/details/highfrontierhuma0000onei…
on “Ask HN: Whats the oldest drawing of an extraterrestrial colony?” ↗…also specifically addresses space-based solar power. I'll refer you to his comments in Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity for that. My own first encounter with that notion was in T.A. Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space, which I read with wide-eyed enthusiasm shortly after it was first published. My eyes and enthusiasm have narrowed somewhat in the intervening decades. I've mentioned geothermal previously. Consider…
on “Chemists discover new way to harness energy from ammonia” ↗The first eight images were published in T.A. Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space, now available online. https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-by-t-a-heppenheimer/
on “Space Colony Art from the 1970s” ↗Gerard K. O'Neill, High Fronteir and T.A. Heppenheimer, Colonies in Space were two of the better-known ones. Both have distinctive covers. https://www.worldcat.org/title/high-frontier-human-colonies-... https://www.worldcat.org/title/colonies-in-space-a-comprehen...
on “Space colonies of the future as imagined by NASA in the 1970s” ↗…bombs to power a spacecraft.) The various studies on space colonization are also interesting. T.A. Heppenheimer summarizes some of them (in particular, the famous Stanford Summer Study) in his book "Colonies in Space." Interstellar travel is another thing entirely, though.
on “Ask HN: Stark Trek - How far are we?” ↗