Space Habitat - Motivation

Motivation

Several motivations for building space colonies have been proposed: survival, security, energy, raw materials and money.

Space habitats are immune to most of the natural disasters that plague the Earth, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. A space habitat can be the passenger compartment of a large spacecraft for colonizing asteroids, moons, distant stars or other planets (see: Space and survival). Spreading our population out into multiple self-sufficient space habitats across the Solar System will increase our odds of survival, a possible ruin of the Earth's population as a whole not dooming all our species, any more.

Space is literally filled with light produced from the Sun. In Earth orbit, this amounts to 1400 watts of power per square meter. This energy can be used to produce electricity from solar cells or heat engine based power stations, process ores, provide light for plants to grow and to warm space colonies, or to heat cold planets (Mars).

Most asteroids are a mixture of the aforementioned materials, virtually all stable elements on the periodic table can be found in the asteroids and comets and more importantly, because these bodies do not have substantial gravity wells, it is very easy to draw materials from them and haul them to a construction site.

There is estimated to be enough material in the main asteroid belt alone to build enough space habitats to equal the habitable surface area of 3,000 Earths.