Life In Space

Back in 1988, the Mutants In Orbit supplement opened up the "Final Frontier" to the After the Bomb setting, and while the thought of living on a space station can, and has been romanticized with visions of Dyson Spheres, Ringworlds, Stanford Torus Rings, and other shaped habitats where we recreate Terran eco-systems to give the illusion that we are still living on Earth.

The problem with this is where do you get all that dirt and rock for the infrastructure, not to mentions all the materials and alloys needed to build the superstructure? You can't take it from Earth, since it's most likely still needed there. Water can be harvested from comets and other areas in the solar system, but fertile arable soil is not a common resource in our solar system.

Still, by the time we need to seriously consider constructing these types of space habitats, we might have the ability to create large quantities of arable soil.

Carousel Space Habitat


Ringworld


Stanford Torus Ring


Stanford Torus Ring (Space Habitat by Uzi Berko)


Eric Bruneton Space Station


Island One Space Station