Remember, the overall EARTH PLUS concept's purpose is to enable a great expansion of human civilization while removing much of the load on the earthsurface ecosystem, thus enabling earth's restoration.
A progression from the present-day space scenario (in which the Space Shuttle routinely is used to a half dozen people and instrumentation back and forth between Earth surface and low earth orbit), might be:
1. Humanity decides to actively move the majority of people to near-earth space, out of the direct path of the earth's fragile ecosystem, instead of continuing down the present course of events of depopulation of the planet through fatal disease and artificially induced incompetance. Instead, the Clarke Belt City is chosen as a way to preserve an expanding human civilization population in nearly earthlike artificially constructed space habitat environments, while also preserving and healing the Earth surface ecosystem.
2. Pre-assembled sections of a toroidal space station design are put into low earth orbit by the creation of a flyback engine/control type wet launch module vehicle, largely using the existing proven Space Shuttle technology. The wheel-shaped space habitat is first built on the ground in the form of pre-fitted modules linked in a circle. The design of each module is for dual use, the other use is for being the fuel tank and payload of an unmanned engine & control module which launches them into low earth orbit. The unmanned engine/controlmodule flies back to the launch site for the next module's launch, much as the present space shuttle returns to the Earth's surface.
3. Use these unmanned wet-launched prefitted modules to build artificial gravity space stations made of circles of these linked modules to prove out the hypothesis that earth surface gravity and atmospheric pressure in a rotating toroid can provide functional stability in a group living situation which includes other life forms in a harmonious synthesis.
4. The bulk of the physical structure to be built in the Clarke Belt around the Earth would need to be built out of space resources. The Moon is handy and has plentiful resources of such materials as aluminum and titanium. This material needs to be moved from the Moon's surface to the vicinity of the Clarke Belt efficiently and with a minimum of pre-industrialization of the Moon. Investigate forms of materials-pumps utilizing the greater depth of potential energy of the adjacent earth's gravity well, to lift materials up out of the Moon's gravity well. One way to do this is to store the energy as angular momentum: an Earth-Moon two-body orbiting Skyhook one-direction materials pump, which picks up packaged payloads from the far side of the Moon on a tether, payload and spacecraft tethered whirling together around their common center-of-gravity as they continue around the Moon and into Earth's gravity well, the spacecraft regaining its energy through appropriately timed release of the payload from a lengthened tether deep into Earth's gravity well. Hans Moravec created the original spinning skyhook concept. (Refer to "Space Inspiration" and Long Space Transportation Structures files.)
5. Creation of stored-energy bridges on Earth surface to develop the technology into a high reliability system, while also providing new modes of long range transportation of large amounts of fuels, water and other resources. Development of emplacement techniques. Keith Loftstrom conceptualized related structures of "launch loops."
6. Fabrication of a kinetic bridge to low earth orbit. Using this bridge, install a complete ring around the earth in orbit at the peak altitude of the bridge. Spinning that continuous ring faster than its orbital velocity will enable it to support extra mass besides itself, which is non-moving relative the the earth surface and the bridge. Build relatively unshielded space habitats there for research. Then fabrication of the first stored energy bridges to the Clarke Belt create the links to the new land: the Clarke Belt. Historically, Earle Smith conceptualized a form of kinetic-energy supported bridge from Earth surface to the Clarke Belt, and this was expanded up by the author.
7. First Clarke Belt "Stanford Torus" type 10,000-person space settlement built from Earth materials, brought up on a stored-energy bridge. This develops the functional structural design with components built comparatively easily on the Earth's surface. Outfitting the interior of the space settlement to include as many earth-normal features as possible. Tests out agricultural systems, condominium homes on the interior slopes, and creative stable harmonious social system...and millions of the other necessary things needing to be tested out there too. Each colonist effectively has 26 fish, 6.2 chickens, 2.8 rabbits,and 1/7 of a cow, and the plant diet for these animals is grown on the habitat in lunar soil about 1 foot deep. Housing of the colonists is on terraced condominiums along the sides slopes inside the rotating wheel habitat, including 45 square yards per person for residential and community life, 5 square yards per person for mechanical and life support systems, and 21 square yards per person for agriculture and food processing. (This general type of complete space habitat structure can be found in detail in NASA SP-413 "Space Settlements: A Design Study", and also in "The High Frontier" by Gerard K. O'Neill.
8. Long term electrical power to support the kinetic energy bridges needs to come from space resources instead of relying on Earth resources, so development of solar power electromechanical thrusters supporting these bridges needs to be done. They would use solar energy converted into electrical energy to accelerate the downward direction of the kinetic mass stream so as to replenish the energy consumed by the support of the bridge structure and for moving payloads along it. The thrust of that acceleration would be against the weight of the power converter, being located along the bridge at points below synchronous orbit.
9. Lunar industrialization, with a stored energy bridge transportation system to replace the two-body orbiting Skyhook. Lunar-to-Clark-Belt materials transportation systems include the 2-body skyhook, O'Neill mass driver, Mooncable fiberglass electrical siphon through L1 point, as well as KESTS bridges.
10. Massive transportation of lunar materials to the Clarke Belt using lunar stored kinetic energy bridges for the major part of the trip.
11. Robotic construction of more Stanford Torus type space settlements in GEO, the Clarke Belt. These 10,000-person-each wheel-like space settlements would be linked together like the chairs on a ferris wheel, eventually all the way around the planet in the Clarke Belt. Robotic construction builds the repetitive toroidal shell structures, then would be spun up to earth normal interior gravity, pressurized from Earth atmosphere components, then the interior outfitted in the way things are built on earth surface by people and machines.
12. Great living for humanity in the Earth-surface-like Clarke Belt City! It is essential that the functionality and appearance of the interior of these space settlements resemble normal Earth environments as much as possible, not only to maintain our long term humanity there, but also to enable ecological balance with the other imported diverse current Earth surface ecosystem balancing lifeforms, our biological partners in space as well as on land.
13. Restoration of Earth surface ecological balance by City dwellers would become vacation volunteer activity, a periodic pilgramage back to Earth surface to heal the wounds we have inadvertently already given to Mother Earth. The rainforests can be restored as best as possible using whatever species that still live.
Author and maintainer of this pagesite: James E. D. Cline. Recentmost page construction upgrade was on 19960627. Copyright © 1996 J E D Cline, right to copy freely given to all, provided that credit is given to the author.