We Could Build Space Cities On Asteroids With This Wild Concept
A pandemic-induced “lockdown” project produced a new vision of how to build cities on asteroids.
the wild asteroid The concept would see humans from the far future collect rock debris into a huge bag made of nanofiber mesh, allowing future astronauts to build a habitat inside the loose asteroid fragments as the rocks spin in space.
“This project started as a way for physicists and engineers to blow off some steam, put worldly stresses aside for a while, and imagine something crazy,” Ph.D. The study’s candidate and lead author, Peter Miklavčič, who works at the University of Rochester, said in a declaration (opens in a new tab).
The researchers suggest that future 22-square-mile (57-square-kilometer) Manhattan-sized cities could be built on these space rocks, just like in science fiction, assuming the base asteroid is at least 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. broad.
“We’re taking a sci-fi idea that’s been very popular recently, on TV shows like Amazon’s ‘The Expanse,’ and offering a new way to use an asteroid to build a city in space,” added co-author Adam Frank. , who teaches physics and astronomy at Rochester, in the same statement.
The study team argues that if their concept really works, it would (eventually) allow for lower-cost exploration of the Solar system and open life off-planet to many more people than just billionaires.
That said, the launch infrastructure isn’t yet in place for quick and affordable access to space, let alone any asteroid city building materials; which can take a few decades at least to build, if not centuries.
The new study borrows from the oft-quoted “O’Neill cylinder (opens in a new tab)” concept, first proposed by physicist Gerard O’Neill in 1972 POT to study. Simply put, the design includes two cylinders that rotate in opposite directions, inspiring billionaires like blue origin‘s Jeff Bezos (who made his fortune with Amazon) or spacex‘s Elon Musk. But previous work has suggested that supplying the necessary materials from Earth would be quite expensive.
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Miklavčič studies the space debris that often arises on asteroids, which in many cases can only be held together by gravity. Since a rotating O’Neill cylinder would send such an asteroid flying, a flexible bag could be a solution to contain the materials and allow a stable base for a city.
The mesh bag would be made of carbon nanofibers, which are lightweight yet strong enough to hold asteroid debris together in a potential habitat. In theory, an asteroid spinning inside a bag would fling its rocks to the sides, allowing the bag to expand and hold the rocks together with the help of nanofibers. Debris that splattered the side of the bag would be retained there by artificial gravity and would protect the inhabitants from space radiation.
While the study is literally ‘out there’, the researchers stressed that all the technology is currently available (albeit at an early stage) and that the science stands firm.
“Obviously no one will be building asteroid cities any time soon, but the technologies required to achieve this kind of engineering don’t break any laws of physics,” Frank said.
A research-based study was posted in january (opens in a new tab) in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, and featured by the university in December.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author of “Why am I taller? (opens in a new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Espaciodotcom (opens in a new tab) either Facebook (opens in a new tab).