Astoria
Background
With the Foundation Society’s ambitions to push crewed exploration into the outer solar system, it was essential that a major materials supply chain and manufacturing capabilities were constructed on the edge of the inner solar system. With the abundance of materials available within the asteroid belt, this was always going to be a key target for a major settlement, but many were who were sceptical as to whether the Foundation Society could establish such a settlement safely.
Yet despite this challenge, Astoria was a great success and parallels are often drawn to the original Greek etymology of the word ‘astron’ meaning star, as Astoria does shine as one of the crowning achievements of the Foundation Society thus far, and it will act as the second major stepping stone to human expansion into the outer solar system.
Services
- Asteroid Mining - Astoria is able to mine material from any selected asteroid in the asteroid belt at a rate of 5m^3 per second, although this high rate does come at the cost of $500,000 per second of operation and material is mined in the form of tiny particles of dust that must be purified and refined
- Mass Driver- For a cost of $5/tonne per m/s delta V, Astoria's mass driver can rapidly send cargo back to anywhere in the inner solar system, although can only fire 3 CASSSCs per day due to the power draw of the mass driver
- Manufacturing - Astoria may undertake small amounts of refining and manufacture, although the heavy vibrations from mining operation mean that refined materials are 0.8 times the strength of the Earth-refined materials, and the cost is 1.2 times as much
- With its position in the Asteroid Belt, Astoria is the first step into the outer solar system and may be used as a staging post for small research missions as they set off into the outer solar system, although refueling here is twice as expensive as at Alexandriat
Astoria
Mining Settlement
Initial Operating Capacity Achieved – 2077
Location – Moving between asteroids in The Asteroid Belt for mining purposes
Initial Population – 4000
Predicted Population in 2100 – 5000 + 500 transients
This webpage refers to a fictional space settlement which is part of the UK Space Design Competition. No information presented here or implied herefrom should be regarded as factual. Any similarities with real events, places, or persons are purely coincidental.