Guidebook to Installations of The Jovian Confederation - Chapter 2

Here's Chapter 2 of Jason Robertson's Guidebook to Installations of the Jovian Confederation, originally posted in the EXO webzine.

The single most difficult challenge of colony design is providing a long-term alternative to gravitational acceleration. It is no surprise that acceleration concerns are the dominant factor in determining basic colony design. When the simple exercises of early space stations failed to avert serious health risks the road to the vivarium and O’Neill colonies was laid out. The only serious alternative, genetic modification of the human form, was never implemented due to public opinion. Of course, today the Edicts enshrine these limitations, assuring that future generations will remain heir to these needs. Science in the early twenty-third century has developed new means to reduce the effects of low and micro-gravity conditions, but the essential problems remain the same. The Earth-normal environment of colony cylinders avoids all of these problems; less ambitious stations can limit the problems to a greater or lesser extent according to their design.

Perhaps the most famous of the medical hazards of space travel and habitation is bone decalcification. The lack of the usual stresses placed on the bones causes the loss of calcium to the bloodstream. The result is osteoporosis. Decalcified bones are brittle and can easily be broken. Paradoxically, low gravity environments enhance the risk of the sort of collisions that can break a femur or other major bones. Aside from the rotational simulation of gravity, the most common preventative measure is a strict regimen of exercise. If carefully crafted to trigger calcium deposition, adhered to rigidly, and aided by modern drugs, one can expect almost to maintain a minimum acceptable bone strength for up to five years of low gravity conditions, or two years of microgravity. If these limits are exceeded it becomes increasingly likely that there will be permanent bone frailty; under extreme conditions, the individual may no longer be able to withstand high accelerations. The drugs also include chemicals designed to bind with calcium that is freed into the bloodstream and safely chaperone it out of the body. This treatment reduces the level of kidney stone formation to only three times that of comparable people under one-gravity acceleration.

Muscle atrophy is far more difficult to control. Even at accelerations near Earth normal, muscles lose mass and tone at an alarming rate. It must not be forgotten that the heart is a muscle and suffers just as much from this effect. While extensive physical therapy can restore the muscle condition of almost anyone who grew up under one gee accelerations, it is not helpful if they have died of heart muscle atrophy.

More subtle effects often escape the public eye, but gravity has left a strong mark upon human physiology and its absence is keenly felt. The capacity for healing wounds, internal and external, is significantly diminished. The immune system is degraded. Fluids pooling in unaccustomed areas of the body can be a serious concern for some people. Any and all of these conditions can make travel under high accelerations, or under hibernation, an uncomfortable and risky proposition. Acceleration is not merely a necessity for returning to the terrestrial planets, but a necessity for a healthy life in general.

Simulating gravity is no simple task, and doing it properly tougher still. Gravity simply can’t be duplicated by reasonable means. The larger moons of Jupiter are all too small to offer enough gravity of their own, and attempts to install centrifuges on the surface almost always result in the transfer of enough energy into the surface to melt ice and cause structural problems. Early Jovian colonists had to deal with inefficient and small centrifuges that rarely approached one gee. The inadequacies of these mechanisms led to the large colonies, and to new problems. The basic principle of all rotating colonies is the application of centripetal force. By creating a rotating structure, a force is applied towards the center of rotation. Any object rotating along with the structure will have a constant velocity vector that is along the tangent of the path of rotation. The structural constraints of a solid object will force a curved path. The force applied towards the center in order to bring the object into the circular path of a rotation is what produces the appearance of gravity. This simulation of gravity is usually sufficient for most psychological and physiological purposes.

The Coriolis effect stands to remind us that centripetal force is not gravity. Because a rotating object has a certain period of rotation that is invariant at any radius on that object, the actual velocity of a given point varies with radius. This means that a two meter tall person will experience a difference in velocity, and thus a difference in force, proportionate to those two meters. This is what mandates that centrifuges designed for long-term habitation must rotate slowly, and have a sizable radius. The most common effects of using centrifuges that do not adequately meet these criteria is disorientation.

While constructing small centrifuges is relatively easy, and produces easily handled stress loads on modern alloys, the larger and more massive structure of a colony cylinder is an entirely new order of challenge. The basic designs of the O’Neill stations had conquered this already, but new complications were caused by the necessity of the vivariums rock shield. Almost all vivariums in the Olympus cluster carry their physical radiation shielding in the form of asteroid rock between the arable soil, and metal skin of the colony. Rock has generally been thought too poor a building material to hold the structural burden itself, but taking it inside the structure forces an even greater stress on the load-bearing elements of the structure. If modern materials science were anything like that of the late twentieth century, this would be a patently impossible task. The advent of nanoscale control over material structure is the only thing allowing the strength needed. While active, free nanotech is prohibited by the Edicts, nano-manufactured material is not. The structural elements of a vivarium cylinder are not simply chunks of metal and ceramic molded into the proper form, they are complex composites, where the number of atomic imperfections are measured in units per billion. Perfection is a powerful thing.

The orbit of Jupiter is shaped and molded by the sun’s gravity. That is the strongest part of the sun’s influence at this vast distance, and the tiny disc of the sun provides no useful source of power to Jovian citizens. Running an ecosystem requires light, heat, and very specific spectral requirements. Almost universally Jovian vivariums have responded to this need with the sunline. Sunlines average between fifteen and thirty meters in diameter, but it is common for areas near support towers to be much wider, to support larger internal accomodations.

The most efficient place to light a colony is from its central axis. Not only is it equidistant to all inhabited areas, but it will also appear to be directly overhead to the inhabitants. As a bonus the sunline will not be subject to much, if any, of the rotational stresses that an off-axis structure would be. Most sunlines counter-rotate, helping to even out any disparities in coverage and allowing the interior to be used for various commercial and entertainment interests. This is particularly crucial for any colony that hopes to field a serious exo-ball team.

Engineering design is a balance between imperatives, and a host of trade-offs. Sunlines are no exception, and as large structures, they have large trade-offs. Despite vigorous experimentation, Jovian science has not found a way to generate a full solar spectrum without the production of waste heat. Some of this heat can simply be used to warm the colony, but much of it will have to be channeled to thermal radiators on the outside of the cylinder. Sunlines also prohibit microgravity flight along the axis.

Energy and mass are both present in abundance on a sunline, and these two ingredients can make any accident, or deliberate act of sabotage, extremely serious. Civil defense planners have outlined several major disaster scenarios. Most serious is the possibility of one or more segments of the sunline breaking from the axis. This could be caused by industrial or terrorist explosion, or a rotation collar seizing up. Sunline segments are usually one to two hundred meters in length and fifteen to thirty meters in diameter. If this were to occur the most likely scenario is that millions of imbedded fullerene tube strands would survive the break intact, anchoring the cylinder to within less than a meter of its original position. This would allow work squads time to secure the segment, evacuate it, and destroy it in an orderly fashion. If too many of the fullerene strands were destroyed the segment could tear free entirely. The results would likely be catastrophic. Atmospheric friction would impart only a fraction of the cylinder’s rotation, and when the sunline reached the surface it would cut a broad path of destruction.

More mundane are simple sunline failures, where one or more segments of the sunline loses its lighting capability. Typically this will be an easily remedied with repair crews well versed in sunline maintenance. If the entire sunline were to be effected the situation would be more serious. Temporary lighting options would work at a small scale at best. The sunline also provides the majority of the colony’s heat; fortunately, colonies are large and cool slowly. Most colonies have emergency heating methods, but if the sunline failure is due to a failure of its power source, these reserves are unlikely to have independent power to draw on. Still, barring a collapse of civilization within the Confederation the time to repair a sunline is small enough to make this only an economic emergency, and not a real killer.

Not all sunlines are alike. Depending on the needs of a colony, and the technological sophistication with which it was built, a number of sunline types may have been used. Each has a unique set of advantages and disadvantages.

The first decades of vivarium construction were plagued by difficulties in shedding the heat generated by the sunline. Not only would the station’s thermal budget be exceeded, but the sunline could be endangered by heat-related shutdowns. Jovian engineers implemented a two-pronged solution: the diameter of the sunline was enlarged, up to forty meters in some cases; and each segment of the sunline illuminated only a one hundred and twenty degree arc.

These are the oldest sunlines, but many colonies still find them to be the most useful. They are large, and while many of them are too old to counter-rotate, the sheer amount of available internal space allows establishments inside to set up rotation collars easily. At the same time the actual lighting technology is usually the oldest, and many colonies are looking into purchasing more modern sunlines.

Most Jovian colonies use continuous sunlines. Advances in heat sink technology allows a smaller structure, and complete three hundred and sixty degree illumination. Most sunlines of this type are about twenty meters in diameter and counter-rotate. Each has from three to eight continuous illumination bands that are only interrupted where one modular segment ends and the next begins.

The cutting edge of sunline technology is new to the twenty-third century. Previous sunlines have relied on lighting mechanisms with a high output, but also a large physical footprint. Attempts to generate sufficient lighting within a smaller area always led to insurmountable heating problems. In 2202 the Vanguard Mountain based Photolite Inc. debuted their new point source lights. Capable of producing more than a thousand times the illumination per square centimeter of normal sunlines, they were also virtually unaffected by heating problems.

Each light draws power by induction from a nearby super conducting power grid. With this new technology, sunlines need only supply power and physical support. Lights can be planted along the surface, and in the rare event of failure, replaced individually as time permits. All colonies in planning are now being updated with these new systems, and many existing colonies have placed inquiries with Photolite about converting their own sunlines.

The sunline is always the main power consumer of a Jovian vivarium. Indeed, the sunline is the only power source required for the colony ecology, which is designed to be as near to self-sustaining as possible. Most other systems are run off of the surplus energy not needed for the sunline.

The most abundant source of power in the Jovian subsystem is Jupiter’s magnetosphere. By moving a conductive body through the field a current proportional to the magnetic flux traversed will be generated. Since Jovian stations are always heavily magnetically shielded, most of this induction takes place in outlying structures, usually dual-purposed as thermal radiators. Induction systems imbedded as gridwork in the hull are not unknown either, but are usually inefficient. This system can also be used as a limited propulsion system, as electromagnetic interactions with the magnetosphere generate electromotive force.

The nearly free power of the Jovian magnetosphere might seem a panacea to all of the Confederation’s energy woes, but in fact only the colonies of Olympus can make effective us of it. The Trojan states must find other means. The nearly universal solution for stations tethered to an asteroid is fusion. Banks of fusion reactors, dumping their waste heat into the farther side of the asteroid supply plentiful energy at a safe distance. The colony’s own capacitors and auxiliary reactors can run all essential systems for thirty-six hours in the event of tether disruption. Even colonies not tethered to an asteroid use most of this system, but they replace the tether with a microwave rectenna system. This can take the form of a ‘sail’ or ‘wing’ that extends from a counter-rotating part of the vivarium to intercept the microwave beam without interfering with the operation of devices near the colony hull..

All that the sunline truly exists for is to power the ecosystem. It is the first link to the chain of life, directly powering its most basic rung: photosynthesis. While most acute disasters that a colony might face can be remedied in the short term, the ecology of a station is a precious asset that requires long term care, and has long term repercussions should an error be made.

No matter where humans go in the solar system, they have always brought the distinctive green of chlorophyll with them. The arts of agriculture have reached new heights in the space age, both metaphorically and physically. Even where it seems the most unruly, vegetation in space is always carefully controlled.

The first role of flora is to provide a natural, maintenance-free, way of maintaining the balance of gasses in the colony atmosphere. While the grasses, trees, and crops grown along the arable surface of the cylinder contribute to this goal, the great strategic reserves of atmospheric processing lie elsewhere. Specifically, they are in terraced pools along the cylinder endcaps. Duckweed, algae, and other small water plants perform a dual-role: atmospheric renewal and waste management. Eventually these plants are harvested and processed into animal feed. Stock crops for human synthetic foods are usually grown beneath the colony surface in vats.

Typically a Jovian station supports a few varieties of coniferous and deciduous trees, a hundred or so flowering plant species, and several dozen grasses. Most of the rest of the floral ecosystem is comprised of specifically maintained crops. The narrow genetic selection available is always a concern, but colony planners find it better than an unmanageable ecology.

While most Jovian colonies have some domesticated livestock for the purposes of luxury items, such as milks and natural animal fiber clothes, the majority of the animal biomass has no direct human utility. Very few large animals exist in breeding populations on colony cylinders; it is difficult to balance an ecosystem that complicated. Among the most widely present large animals are: chipmunks, rats, shrews, rabbits, deer, frogs, snakes, sparrows, barn owls, kestrels and perch. Each has a carefully considered role in the colony ecosystem. Other animals are present, indeed sometimes even maintained, but these are usually sterile or single-sex populations. Even more critical to the colony’s ecological health are the smaller animals. Most colonies have a fairly standard set of insects and other invertebrates. Butterflies are common, but the majority of the species present are as utilitarian as they are invisible. Some species have not been introduced, domestic flies prominent among them.

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The natural caution of Jovians has led to a number of strange compromises in colony life. One of these is the complete absence of any sort of bees or hornets in the ecosystem. Filling this gap is a sophisticated robot drone, the so-called Watkins Bee. Developed by Andrew Watkins in 2067, and constantly improved on since, the Watkins Bee can substitute for all the pollination tasks normally performed by honeybees. Modern varieties of the Watkins Bee have a lifespan of about three weeks. At this time the micro-robots fly to designated disposable hoppers where they are recycled. A new generation of bees, with appropriately adjusted pollination standards, is then released. The tight control this gives Jovian colony planners over plant reproduction and fruiting is an immense aid. Concerns that the Bees could be used as spy devices has been largely defused by a strict public review process.

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From Luna to Jupiter, re-establishing an earthly ecosystem in space always requires soil. This is one of the most technically daunting tasks facing a colony engineer. Crushed rock is just that, crushed rock. Soil is much more, an organic mixture of rock, dead biomass, and a thriving population of living organisms.

The orbital colonies of the Earth system were close enough to import significant quantities of the genuine product for their start-up cylinders, but the Jovians had no such luxury. Whatever their solution, asteroidal rock would have to be the physical bulk of it. The final recipe was a lot of crushed asteroid, a starter shot of soil, and a specifically engineered mix of organisms and decaying biomass that allowed extremely hardy plants a toehold in this new soil.

This process is tediously slow, and there is no way around it. Even when a new colony opens the initial blend of hardy plants must be allowed several years to grow, die, and decay in the soil before the next generation of plants may be phased in. It usually takes more than ten years for a colony’s soil to be certified fully arable, but once that happens that very soil will fetch a high price as a starter component for the soil of new colonies.

While Elysèe may pride itself on the quality of its landscaping, the fact is that all Jovian stations pay acute attention to this issue. Landscaping is not merely an aesthetic issue for Jovians, there are numerous technical concerns as well. The result is a beautiful, but strangely restrained vista.

The first concern of colony landscapers is the sheer livability of a colony’s terrain. The deeply alien environment of a colony cylinder demands an entirely new outlook. Almost all major changes in elevation in a vivarium occur in the direction of the rotation axis, and not in the direction of spin. Simply put, having a mountain, or just a large hill, hanging halfway up the side of the world can cause involuntary stress. Despite the best acclimation, and complete conscious comfort with the notion, Jovians placed into simulations always show a measurable increase in muscle tension and galvanic skin response.

The psychological duties of Jovian landscapers don’t end there of course, they must also provide the illusion of wide open spaces in a place where a world is shoehorned into a space station. Theories vary on this point, but most possibilities are so thoroughly tested in simulation that no cylinders currently operating are thought of poorly in this regard. Once a basic design has been approved it is forwarded to designers specializing in reconciling the design and mechanical requirements. First among these concerns is balance. There must be radial symmetry in the design’s mass distribution or it will be sent back immediately. A colony without this balance would wobble, possibly causing difficult precession problems and additional stress on any rotation collars.

Most vexing to the pure designers are the hydrological restrictions. Deep water is strictly avoided, and all large bodies of water must lie along the rotation axis. This minimizes erosion caused by Coriolis-induced currents. Theoretically, sandbars or another baffling system could be used to similar effect, but this reduces the recreational and ecological uses of the body of water to the point that very few colonies use this technique.

Every colony engineer will tell you this one thing: a colony is not a station--it is a world in a small package. These engineers take their jobs seriously, and there is much to do on a colony to make sure that all goes well. The complex interaction of the various magnetic fields used to shield the station has produced at least a dozen new professions. Most of the issues which the civic leader of a colony must address are engineering questions at heart. There is no illusion, nor could there be, that living in a vivarium colony is like living on a planet. In the end, all loops must close. Air, water and biomass are nearly as precious as space itself.

The vivarium colonies are the central political unit in Jovian life. Initially their role and organization was vague, but with more than two hundred such stations in existence throughout the Confederation, more standard mechanisms are now in place. The average Jovian has a strong interest in municipal politics, despite the generally mundane nature of the issues confronted.

Even before a colony is constructed, a number of things have to happen. Initially the state and confederation governments approve and allocate funds for the new colony. Once the funding is procured, the general details of the colony--position, maximum and minimum population--are publicized. Registered interest groups from the SysInstruum are encouraged to apply for charter stewardship. In order to be considered a registered interest group, a group of Jovian citizens, maintaining a certified number of at least fifty thousand members for five years or more, must have expressed interest in chartering a colony. Once the government commission has selected a worthy interest group, that group becomes the voting polity of the station, even before it is habitable. They make the design choices: Is it to be a small agricultural station or a medium sized industrial? Any decision impacting the lifestyle of residents is offered up to the members of the interest group. While the basic parameters were set at the funding level, the interest group has fairly wide latitude in decision making.

After the initial design choices, the interest group must choose one of a dozen or so charter options for basic municipal governance. At the same time the colony’s initial name is chosen and placed on the immigration register. Construction commences at this stage. Members of the chartering interest group qualified to aid in this are given preference in selection. Years later, when the colony is nearing completion, the interest group votes on the first slate of public officials. The colony opens, the government assists in populating it, and it begins to operate as a colony in the prime of life.

Most of the time the council chair of a colony does little more than soothe ruffled feathers and appoint responsible and qualified people to the positions necessary for colony upkeep. That all governmental proceedings are entirely public on the municipal level is a given. The most divisive issues to face colony councilors usually involve zoning disputes and commercial resource allocations.

Relations with the JAF are usually cordial; most colonies support some JAF presence, if only an internal defense garrison. While it is typical for JAF personnel to man colony point-defense systems, it is not universal. The reasoning is simple enough: were a colony to mount offensive weaponry it would become a legitimate military target. In this respect the Jovian colonies are much like Earth’s Orbitals, they are not willing to risk the millions of fragile lives inside each cylinder for another weapon platform. Defensive colony operations are handled primarily by mobile assets and stand-alone weapon platforms.