The Coalition and Orbital Grids

[shran]

Did the Coalition dismantle a moon or something to get the resources, or did they dig out a big hole in the Earth for all the resources, did they use a truckloads of asteroids?

And what happens to that enormous heap of junk consisting of rocks, ice and other things floating around in space, including what was left behind by humans ant others over the course of the past centuries?

[Monroe]

To add onto Shran's question I've always wondered about the mass of satilights above the Earth and how that problem would be addressed in the future.

[shran]

A sweeper ship?

[Reliant121]

Maybe you could recycle their components and raw construction materials to help build the skyhook's themselves.

[Graham Kennedy]

The material for the grids was mined from several sources. Several of the large asteroids were moved into Earth orbit over the years for mining purposes, which resulted in a lot of waste rock. Ceres and Vesta are still there in orbit, But many of the large asteroid bodies were used up completely. Other material came from the moon and Mercury.

Very few satellites in orbit in the year 3000; too much danger of collisions with the grid. Notable ones would be collected and stuck in museums around the world; others would be junked and radioactives and such reclaimed. Many would just be blasted into atoms or dropped into the atmosphere.

[Monroe]

Hey I was reminded of Civilization Call to Power and they have orbital space stations you can build and what not. I was wondering if there are massive under water habitats on earth like there are in that game too.

[Graham Kennedy]

Not underwater, no. Why would anybody build an underwater city? "Hey, come live here! It's cramped, enclosed, and has the ever present specter of instant death!"

There are big, big cities on the land and cities floating on the sea, though. Earth was getting pretty crowded while they built the space habitats and grid.

One nice thing is, future Earth food production depends on what are basically high tech chemical processing factories rather than growing food or killing animals - the average Earther would be horrified at the idea of eating something that used to be alive. As a consequence, there's no farmland anywhere on Earth. Although a lot of the surface is covered in cities and much of it is covered in parks, recreation areas, etc, there's probably a good deal more wild land on Earth in the year 3000 than there is today.

[Monroe]

Ah cool beans. And that's a good point.. why would someone want to live in total darkness surrounded by death...

[Graham Kennedy]

A forcefield would protect against the kind of pressures found on the ocean deeps easily. But what's the point of living down there? There's no light, very little life. You could have windows but they may as well be painted black for all you would see out of them. And if the hull/field should ever fail, you'd be dead in under a second. It would make about as much sense as building homes inside the magma chamber of an active volcano.

[Mikey]

"Hey, come live here! It's cramped, enclosed, and has the ever present specter of instant death!"

Sounds liek you're talking about at least three of the boroughs of New York City.

[Tsukiyumi]

Yeah, it sounds a bit like my apartment.

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

[Mikey]

Hey, wait a minute!

*Checks Graham's location*

You said "specter." Don't you mean "spectre?"

[Graham Kennedy]

I dunno... when you said "liek" a couple of posts back, did you mean "like"?

[Reliant121]

Touche

[Mikey]

I dunno... when you said "liek" a couple of posts back, did you mean "like"?

To quote the late, great Jerry "Papa" Garcia - "Lemme make my mistakes on my own - I don't need your help."

No, mine was a simple, straightforward error. I thought yours was a use of the American spelling over the British spelling.