space colony size preferences summary some time ago i sent the following message every once in a while i design an orbital space colony i m gearing up to do another one i d some info from you if you were to move onto a space colony to live permanently how big would the colony have to be for you to view a permanent move as desirable specifically how many people do you want to share the colony with what physical dimensions does the living are need to have assume g living the colony will rotate assume that you can leave from time to time for vacations and business trips if you re young enough assume that you ll raise your children there i didn t get a lot of responses and they were all over the block thanx muchly to all those who responded it is good food for thought here s the edited responses i got how many people do you want to share the colony with what physical dimensions does the living are need to have cylinder m diameter x km long rui sousa ruca saber si pt how many people do you want to share the colony with what physical dimensions does the living are need to have square kms surface divided into city towns villages and countryside must have lakes rivers amd mountains how many people really isn t that large a number everyone will know everyone else within the space of a year and will probably be sick of everyone else within another year what physical dimensions does the living are need to have hm i am not all that great at figuring it out but i would maximize the percentage of colony space that is accessible to humans esecially if there were to be children since they will figure out how to go everywhere anyways and everyone especially me likes to go exploring i would want to be able to go for a walk and see something different each time for population i think i would want a substantial town big enough to have strangers in it this helps get away from the small town everybody knows everything syndrome which some people like but i don t call it several thousand people for physical dimensions a somewhat similar criterion big enough to contain surprises at least until you spent considerable time getting to know it as a more specific rule of thumb big enough for there to be places at least an hour away on foot call that km which means a km circumference if we re talking a sphere henry spencer at u of toronto zoology henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry my desires for permanent move to a space colony assuming easy communication and travel size about a small town size say sq km course bigger is better population about sq km or less so for sqkm less is better for elbow room more for interest and sanity so say max min tommy mac tom mcwilliams work inhale to the chief tm ibm cl msu edu hm zonker harris in
