1.4 teams out after the minerals. Later, the asteroids themselves can be brought to the colony, using part of their mass as propellant. The principal cost savings is in the refining, with the use of solar energy. The finished products, either as pure minerals or space-processed components, can be sold to Earth. An early use of propelled space colonies might be as selfsufficient observatories and laboratories orbiting the Sun, Mars, Venus, the gas giants and their satellites. Such observatories, moving outward within the Solar System, would extend the astronomer's baseline for deep-space measurements. Eventually, colonies independent of solar energy could leave our Solar System. As their number, size, and rate of production increases, space colonies can provide living space for a significant percentage of Earth's population (1.4). Although it is unlikely that emigration to the space colonies could stabilize the mother planet's population (1.5), it would establish a new frontier much like Great Britain's American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Space colonies would be the vehicles of mankind's renewed outward motion. I.3: HISTORY The concept of the space colony is a blend of ideas gathered together over a number of centuries. To the early thoughts on manned space travel and artificial satellites were added spinning for artificial gravity, a recycled food system for life support, the use of solar energy, and the mining of the Moon for materials. Robert Salkeld (1.6) reviews the growth of the space colony from its contributing themes, as gestated and explored by science-fiction authors and scientists. In 1969 Professor Gerard K. O'Neill and a group of Princeton University students began a more systematic investigation of the space colony concept, defining its potential uses, and developing a potential colony design, called the O'Neill Model 1. These ideas, published in Physics Today (1.4), generated considerable interest in
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