This author ignored the possibility of rotating large structures to get artificial gravity. Yes, if we want to live in space outside of protective habitats we need major modifications. However, we don’t have to. We can build habitats that have an interior environment that accommodates us just fine.

Those are averages, not promises. We could get clobbered tomorrow. Not high probability, but could happen. Note that the day before we do get clobbered, it will also be very low probability.

Water is an excellent radiation shield material. The most dangerous radiation in space comes from all directions, so you must shield everywhere.

1. I don’t think so. I think it would be MUCH easier to mine an asteroid for materials and then make what you want. Remember that most large asteroids are probably rubble piles with little internal strength.

Yes,

Can’t think of why you’d build a LEO settlement anywhere but LEO. You’re already about as close to Earth as you can get.

I don’t know how we will get to the nearest stars. However, I think a million years of tech development should be enough to turn settlements into generation ships.

SpaceX is most people’s favorite these days. They have lowered launch cost by about 30% (there’s lots of ways of calculating this, so the exact number doesn’t mean much).

There is no reason to believe aging will change much, if at all. Just no data I’m aware of.

What does ‘terraform the Human’ mean? WRT terraforming planets, my personal vision is that most humans will, eventually, live in free space settlements, not on a planet or moon. Thus, terraforming is unnecessary. Note that Ceres, the largest asteroid, has enough materials for space settlements with living area perhaps…

Actually no. If you put settlements in LEO (low earth orbit) you don’t need NEO or lunar materials because radiation shielding requirements are so low (see radiation paper url in other replies). Having these settlements provides and in-space market for the lunar and NEO mines that will be necessary to provide the…

There are technical problems, but that’s just to make it fun for engineers :-). Docking should be done on the axis of rotation. You need some kind of active wobble control to adapt to people and stuff moving around. There are number of ways to do this. My current favorite is weights and the end of cables with…

Personally, I’d rather adapt the environment to me than adapt me to the environment, but other’s might make a different choice. Remember how evolution works though, the unfit die. A bit of a hard sell if unnecessary. There’s plenty of material in this solar system (consider the Moon and asteroids) for radiation…

Bigelow Aerospace is planning to put up a space station that I think would be a good venue for a space olympics. The new capsules being developed for NASA’s commercial crew program can carry 7 people: say six famous atheletes and a cameraman/ref. This concept is described in more detail at http://space.alglobus.net/pap…

Radiation is a major problem. See http://space.alglobus.net/papers/Rotatio… for an elegant solution (choose the right orbit: right above the equator and about 500 km up).

I think that the best place for the first settlements, by far, is equatorial low earth orbit (LEO). If you are right over the equator and at about 500 km it looks as though no radiation shielding is necessary. Resupply from Earth is much easier than anywhere else (it’s 760 x closer than the moon). If you rotate at…

Remember that free-space settlers will have artificial gravity so ‘docking’ should not be a problem — unless you are at the axis of rotation in which case the choice of venue was probably quite deliberate.

Kalpana One is my favorite, partly because my team created it but also because Bryan Versteeg did such an amazing job of building a beautiful 3D version.

I haven’t given this much thought — except that I expect there to be a lot of free-space settlements (millions in this solar system alone) in the long run and I imagine there will be a great diversity in social systems, including justice systems.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. There is absolutely no reason anyone should go unless they want to, there will be plenty of takers. Mars One had 200,000 applicants for an incredibly risky one way trip to Mars — and they have no technical credibility having never built even a small spacecraft. I don’t think…