fred@inuxc.UUCP (Fred Mendenhall) (01/07/84)
It has been several years since I've heard anything on the subject of space colony orbits so maybe its time to see if anything new has been cooking behind the scenes. The last I heard was that the BEST place to put a colony was in a rather interesting 2:1 resonate orbit around the Earth. The arguments ran something like this: 1. Low earth orbit is no good, the energy required to get resources from the moon and asteroids is not favorable. 2. Geosynchronus orbit, was not good either but I forget the reason why.(Probably too much junk there, Who wants to live in a junk yard?) 3. L1, L2 & L3 points gravitationaly unstable. 4. L4 & L5 points yep they are good but maybe there are better places. 5. 2:1 Earth resonate orbit, (at some obscure radius) was thought to be the best because it was far enough form the earth yet you could move resources from the L2 point to the colonies for essential free. That is to say placing a mass at the L2 point would eventually cause it to fall all by itself to the earth 2:1 resonate orbit. (Pretty slick huh!) 6.?? Well the book I was reading at the time claimed that there where better orbits yet but I never followed up on it. Soooooooo, What is the current understanding on the best places to build space colonies?? Fred Mendenhall AT&T Technologies