Space Colonization: Reasons, Goals, and Risks.

Space Colonization: Reasons, Goals, and Risks.

Asif Akbar & Kulsum Fatima.

Bachelor of Technology (AMU) Faculty Number:22EEB347&22EEB332 ----------------------------------------------------------***--------------------------------------------------------

Abstract The space exists as a big playground for future humans not only for exploration but also for energy sources, life chances, tourism as well as military purposes. The race of space exploration is increasing and increasing and is going to be the most advanced race. Space colonization this is an idea created by humans on earth to create celestial bodies in the cosmos as a backup plan to sustain human race if something happens to our home planet earth. The idea here is to build massive projects such as ISS in space so that it can hold masses of human race and continuing it by meeting all the necessary requirements. NASA now for many years has been organizing conferences providing young minds to unleash their imagination and create models which would have the potential to continue humanity in uncertain circumstances. However, it is also important to understand the basic living conditions required by human beings to live peacefully which must be regulated so that humanity can live on even after facing disasters. However, colonizing space also creates risks — risks whose potential harm could easily overshadow all the benefits of humankind’s long-term future. In this article, I present a preliminary overview of some major risks of space colonization: Prioritization risks, aberration risks, and conflict risks. Each of these risk types contains risks that can create enormous disvalue; in some cases, orders of magnitude more disvalue than all the potential positive value humankind could have. To mitigate space colonization-related risks and make space colonization as safe as possible. In order to do so, we need to start working on real-world space colonization governance.

Given the near total lack of progress in the domain of space governance in recent decades, however, it is uncertain whether meaningful space colonization governance can be established in the near future, and before it is too late. This paper is about explaining the requirements needed and the

practicality of actually carrying out these projects considering the negative sides and solutions for them to build one.

1.INTRODUCTION The idea of space settlement was first introduced in the year 1984 in Ohio state university, back then considering this idea, it would be considered as to be an impossible project which humans can dream of because it’s just like building a whole new world right from scratch is quite impractical even considering modern day technology but saying “impractical” doesn’t necessarily mean to be impossible. Finding appropriate solutions for the problems which are expected to be faced we can still hope for building a whole new world for humans to live their rest of lives. In 1977 finally the first sustained space habitat the Salyut 6 station was put into Earth's orbit. Eventually the first space stations were succeeded by the ISS, today's largest human outpost in space and closest to a space settlement. Built and operated under a multilateral regime it has become a blueprint for future stations, such as around and possibly on the Moon.

1.1 why exactly should we consider building a body in space, and our goals.

The most important reason for space colonization is the continued existence of the human race in the face of a catastrophic event. Space colonization would allow humans to spread among many planets and moons. Therefore, humans would not be confined to the Earth. This expansion is important because if something catastrophic were to happen to the Earth (e.g., a meteor collision, rapid global warming, a polar shift, etc.), humans would still be alive on other celestial bodies. Even if most humaninhabited objects were destroyed, humans would still survive on other celestial bodies.

To summarize, it would be very unlikely that humans would become completely extinct.

With the global population rising at dangerous rates, space colonization would help alleviate future overpopulation on Earth. Currently, the global population is approximately 7.8 billion. By 2050, the global population is projected to reach 11.5 billion. In other words, the global population could increase by 3.7 billion in just 30 years.

At this rate, Earth will not be able to sustain such a large population. Space colonization would eventually allow a large portion of the human population to move to other planets, preventing overpopulation and its negative effects. Another valuable benefit of space colonization is the abundance of natural resources available in space. The rapidly rising global population may exhaust Earth’s natural resources in the future. However, humans can still extract resources from another source--asteroids. The resources present in asteroids are abundant and untouched. By establishing colonies on nearby planets, humans can get access to these resource-rich asteroids, allowing them to support both their colonies and Earth itself. Abundant resources may also be found on the colonized planets. Since there is no day-night cycle in free space (outside of any planet’s atmosphere), humans could easily generate solar energy by using probes with large solar panels. The solar energy generated could help support space colonies, making them self-sustainable. Additionally, the vast amount of solar energy could help power Earth after fossil fuels run out; in fact, the solar energy could even help Earth move away from fossil fuels even before they run out.

1.2) Expansion with fewer negative

consequences.

Expansion of humans and technological progress has usually resulted in some form of environmental devastation, and destruction of ecosystems and their accompanying wildlife.

In the past, expansion has often come at the expense of displacing many indigenous peoples, the resulting treatment of these peoples ranging anywhere from encroachment to genocide.

Because space has no known life, this need

not be a consequence, as some space settlement advocates have pointed out.

2.Risks & ways to overcome these risks.

There are many which we humans have to overcome if we consider that earth has been destroyed some of them are

2.1) Dealing with gravity.

The shape shown here is a TORUS (fig.1), it can produce gravity upon Rotating at a certain speed with specified RPM. This type of structure is also accepted to be the most optimum and is selected by vast majority of people for the space settlements.

Figure:1 Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ommons/thumb/1/17/Tesseract_torus.png /330px-Tesseract_torus.png Formulae for the force of gravity in RPM is:9.55 X

√g/r.

Where g=force of gravity & g=9.8 m/s2 to be produced R=base radius For torus radius would be, R-r (R=outer radius, r=innerradius).

2.2) To Maintain Atmosphere.

To overcome this problem, first we have to have good strong force of gravity which would hold the gases from escaping the projects. If we havegood gravitational force we can extract minerals from the asteroids, these are some of the best sources of the minerals and resources and if we once run out of the minerals on earth we can use asteroids as alternates, this also will affect the location of the projects because in our

solar system we have our own asteroid belt, so if we also create these projects, we have to place them near to the orbits of the mars and Jupiter meaning we would always maintain safe distance from the asteroids which would provide us with the minerals and resources required to sustain life. On other hand, the bases which can be established on the planets would have a thicker and denser atmosphere. The planets (for now let’s consider moon) already have a thin atmosphere, the idea here is to launch nuclear warheads towards these planets hence breaking the rocks and crust of the planets now there is release of many gases which have been trapped inside these rocks, now once these gases are released then again, they go up in the higher altitudes once done continuously we can release enough gases to make a thick atmosphere for human survival.

2.3) Producing pants and vegetables in space for consumption and oxygen: Plants are one of the most important living species for humans as they release the right gases for human survival and maintain the optimum temperature for the sustenance of homo-sapiens but the question how we are going to solve this problem in absence of the basic commodity that is soil in space.

Scientist and engineers and botanist and the field experts at NASA have figured some of the ways for growth of plants without the application of soil that is through Aeroponics, Hydroponics and Aquaponics. By further examination I conclude that Aeroponics is the way we can adopt for growth plants (here the other two can also grow plants), the advantage of the Aeroponics is that we can grow any sort of plants that is of any species in minimum resources ensuring the maximum outcome.

There is one of the research papers which was published by me which is regarding doing an experiment on the ISS with improvised shape and new idea of nutrient water for plant growth. However, I will explain the basic principle of the Aeroponics.

Aeroponics: it is a method in which plants are grown byeliminating soil as the source

of all necessary nutrients, but rather nutrient water is used for supplying the nutrients to the plants. This water is sprinkled on to the roots of the plants in atomized size, the root part is given for the absorption of nutrient water and the leaves are exposed to sunlight and to essential gases such as oxygen and carbon di oxide to carry out photosynthesis. Now these projects can be carried out artificially and there is no requirement of natural resource this project of growing plants can be done on both of the ideas, the space-settlement projects and the inter-planetary bases.

2.4) Having good defense system against spatial rocks and asteroids.

There is always a threat of asteroid bouncing off its trajectory and heading towards the space settlement projects. For overcoming this problem there might be either a team who will be observing the asteroids like how we have here at the earth or else we might use powerful lasers for breaking down the asteroids and using them for extracting minerals, this is the only possible way for current day tech to compromise and make such damage without having any internal damage.

However, we won’t necessarily have this problem on the planets, if we consider to establish a base on either mars which is the only possible way for us if earth and moon are destroyed because most of the asteroids even heading towards the planet would be diverted by Jupiter’s gravitational field thus taking the asteroid off its course which was set to be colliding, however actual asteroid crash into the planet is one out of the millions thus making the base much more safe for the human civilization from the celestial rocks!

2.5) Physical, mental and emotional health risks to colonizers

The health of the humans who may participate in a colonization venture would be subject to increased physical, mental and emotional risks. NASA learned that – without gravity – bones lose minerals, causing osteoporosis. Bone density may decrease by 1% per month, which may lead to a greater risk of osteoporosis-related fractures later in life. Fluid shifts towards to the head may cause vision problems. NASA found that isolation in closed environments

abroad the International Space Station led to depression, sleep disorders, and diminished personal interactions, likely due to confined spaces and the monotony and boredom of long space flight. Circadian rhythm may also be susceptible to the effects of space life due to the effects on sleep of disrupted timing of sunset and sunrise.[172] This can lead to exhaustion, as well as other sleep problems such as insomnia, which can reduce their productivity and lead to mental health disorders.[172] High-energy radiation is a health risk that colonizers would face, as radiation in deep space is deadlier than what astronauts face now in low Earth orbit. Metal shielding on space vehicles protects against only 25-30% of space radiation, possibly leaving colonizers exposed to the other 70% of radiation and its short and long-term health complications.

CONCLUSIONS Space colonization, the establishment of permanent human habitats beyond Earth, has an enormous potential moral value because successful space colonization is the necessary condition for trillions of future people to come into existence. At the same time, however, space colonization is not riskfree. The risks of space colonization are so grave that, in a bad-case scenario, successful space colonization could create more moral disvalue than value; possibly even orders of magnitude more. Thus, by having a brief thought and answering some of the expected problems which are yet to happen we can conclude that both the ideas of space settlement that is through building massive bodies or establishing bases on planets are equally effective in their places but in the end, it would be totally dependent on the human race to opt for the better option considering the current day scenario and the problems which are being faced.

REFRENCES [1] creation of an atmosphere for the moon, L. Marshall Libby. The Rand Corp, Santa Monica, California. https://doi.org/10.7249/P4132

[2] POD shape structure of Aeroponics [for space cultivation]. https://www.irjet.net/archives/V8/i7 /IRJET- V8I7458.pdf.

[3] Marko Kovic, Risks of space colonization, July 2020 [4] Ishaan Busireddy, https://www.talkdiplomacy.com/post /whyhumansshouldpursuespacecolon ization [5] ISECG SPACE EXPLORATION GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND BENEFITS, Nantel Suzuki, Kohtaro Matsumoto, Bernhard Hufenbach, Jean-Claude Piedboeuf, William Cirillo, William Carey, [6] Goals and Objectives for the Exploration and Investigation of the Solar System’s Small Bodies, Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) Version 2,19 February 2020