Humans could move to a floating asteroid belt colony within 15 years, top scientist suggests – pennlive.com

If youve ever had the feeling that youd like to step off the planet and live somewhere far, far away as in some distant world a top scientist is suggesting that it could become reality for humans, in as little as 15 years.

According to a report in The Sun, that vision was published in a research paper earlier this month by Dr. Janhunen, an astrophysicist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki.

Dr. Janhunens blueprint moved in a different direction from the vast majority of conceptions regarding space settlement, the report said.

Unlike most plots for distant world settlement, which choose the Moon or Mars, due to their closer proximity to Earth, the report noted that Dr. Janhunen laid out the blueprint for floating mega-satellites around the dwarf planet Ceres, which is about 325 million miles from Earth.

The Sun reported that Dr. Janhunen laid out a plan which includes a disk-shaped habitat boasting thousands of cylindrical structures, each home to more than 50,000 people, linked by powerful magnets, and generating artificial gravity by slowly rotating.

Dr. Janhunen said in his paper that, Residents would mine resources from Ceres 600 miles below the settlement and haul them back up using space elevators, the report cited.

Lifting the materials from Ceres is energetically cheap compared to processing them into habitats, if a space elevator is used, he wrote.

Dr. Janhunen added, Because Ceres has low gravity and rotates relatively fast, the space elevator is feasible.

Why Ceres and not Mars?

Dr. Janhunen added, Ceres the largest object in the asteroid belt is the best destination for off-world settlements due to its Nitrogen-rich atmosphere, which would allow settlers to more easily create Earth-like conditions, compared to Mars carbon dioxide-rich environment.

What about the threats of rogue asteroids or space radiation?

The report noted, that to address outside threats, Dr. Janhunen, who worked with a number of Finnish researchers on the paper, proposed that giant, cylindrical mirrors placed around the mega-satellite could protect it from bombardment of all kinds.

The mirrors would play a dual role - in addition to protection, they would focus sunlight onto the habitat for the growth of crops and other plantlife, the report said.

There are a number of issues with the plans.

In his paper, Janhunen also highlighted a number of issues with the plans.

For starters, theres the not-so-small hurdle of actually flying people to Ceres, the report noted.

The Sun stated that a probe sent to Ceres in 2015, by NASA, took a staggering eight years to get there - far too long to sustain hundreds of people using current technology.

Also, Dr. Janhunen admitted that the energy required to lift building materials from Ceres to orbit would represent a major obstacle, the report revealed.

Dr. Janhunens research, which was published Jan. 6 in the pre-print journal Arxiv, has not yet been peer-reviewed by scientists, the The Sun reported.

READ MORE:

Excerpt from:

Humans could move to a floating asteroid belt colony within 15 years, top scientist suggests - pennlive.com