Space Lanes and Spaceports
Once the Solar System or at least the inner region of the system is populated, there will be space lanes, much as the present shipping lanes transporting goods and people across vast distance. Although it will take sometimes before lots of lanes to be defined and accepted among the public, the only lanes that will be accepted will be the safest or the fastest route. Once the space lanes are defined, space buses will be the main vehicle transporting Human back and forth from Earth to other colonies. The existence of the lanes is vital to Human expansion in space. It will enable ship pilots to save time instead of trying to figure the best way to navigate their ships.
These lanes or sort of course will not be built with similar fashion as the tube. It would be ridiculously stupid to buill a tube from one place in space to another. By the way, the hazard of meteor shower or the same sort prevents such idea to be implemented.
Instead, a buoy will be placed after every certain among of distance along the lanes. The buoys will transmit some kind of signal to traveling ship. The signal gives out useful information regarding navigation.
One would argue that these buoys be effectively be replaced by a space station placed in a quadrant or so. However, communication between a ship and the station will take time. The buoys effectively tell ship pilots.
Buoys nevertheless do not dismiss the importance of a space station. It must be stressed that these buoys will be under the jurisdiction of the station.
There will at least space station in every planet’s orbit, controlling the space traffic of a particular planet. These space stations will usually act as spaceports, a commercial center of a planet. This will allow space traders to sell their goods at the spaceport instead of descending to the planet and waste precious energy.
There will also be stations built in the middle of space, especially in the middle of a long space lane. The station will act as a pit stop and an entreport station.
Back to the orbit, the spaceport will possibly have an extra feature, or at least a spaceport with a solid planet rather than the gaseous Jupiter or Saturn. The feature will accelerate the economic growth of a planet rather dramatic and check the demand for fuel effectively. Spaceports in Earth’s and Mars orbit will be the upper part of a space elevator. For more information on space elevator, read a past posting in The __earth Inc. here.
To be continued…