In case you all haven't, i suggest everyone going and looking at a copy of
JTAS 23. Among other articles (it also had John Ford's classic "Road Show",
which by itself is worth the trouble finding the magazine...) it has
Chris Struble's 'Space Habitats In Traveller" article. Excellent work. I can
if need be type it all in (though it would take a while); i'll summarize below.
Between TL8 and TL14 many societies build rotating habitats. At TL15, it also
becomes possible to make Gravitic habitats (where centripetal force is replaced
by massive grav plates for 'gravity' on the habitat), but this is extremely
expensive and an uncommon solution. The majority of habitats are rotating
ones, spherical or cylindrical.
Habitats are built by the million tons of material used (these are not
the flimsy little structures that spacecraft are, by any means 8-). Costs
and weights depend on a number of factors (atmosphere, Gs, etc.).
One example given is a 7km radius spherical colony built at TL9, which
is large enough to house 2 million people, or produce food for about 11 million,
with some balance in between likely. It would cost MCr 120,000 to build; this
works out to only 60,000 Cr/inhabitant. Spread over only 40 years, this is only
Cr250/month... much less than any well-paying professional will earn. And it
will last a lot longer than 40 years. Seen in this light, it's obvious that
it's well worth it to build larger habitats, even at lower tech levels.
While the massive capital required to start one requires near-certain government
subsidy, the long term economics are quite favorable.
- - -george william herbert
[email removed]