System States Era Stanford Torus Text Updated 3/24/2012 The Stanford Torus was proposed during the 1975 NASA Summer Study, conducted at Stanford University, with the purpose of speculating on designs for future space colonies capable of housing 10,000 to 140,000 permanent residents. This particular realization of a Stanford Torus, a depiction in the System State’s Era of my future history (roughly 700 years from present) is somewhat larger: the torus is approximately half a mile (2,640 feet) in width, thinner in the outer rim to inner edge dimension – and about 5.5 miles in diameter – the axial structure is three miles in length. Note the small asteroidal object in the lower right corner of the image: this has been fitted with tower-mounted RCS along with a much larger industrial Orion pulse driver – not visible in this image – and moved into a parallel orbit for resource mining. A utility craft is moored to the RCS tower while the crew EVA to perform maintenance on the system. I’ve structured my future history, focusing on three general era’s: Pre-Alliance Earth, The Martian Terraforming Era, and the System State’s Era – a context chart is in the works. The System States Era is characterized by large scale engineering works of the kind depicted here. Space colonies (each an independent nation-state) housing millions of permanent residents orbit Jupiter and Saturn – these engage in resource mining and manufacturing in the context of a free market economy. Mars has been terraformed – with mixed results and the requirement of on-going maintenance. The atmosphere of Venus has been reduced – via a controlled-intercept methodology using asteroids fitted with Orion pulse drivers directed in swarms to make numerous, successive and controlled passes through the upper atmosphere, accelerating enormous sheets of atmospheric gasses to escape velocity to be, quite literally, blown off into space – rendering the surface accessible. Though Venus remains uninhabitable, domed cities and a commercial mining and manufacturing industry flourish on its surface. The entire equatorial region of Mercury is being slowly transformed at the hand of the monolithic global Alliance State on Earth – covered in its entirety by a vast solar power array. Humanity has ventured in earnest into space and every part of the solar system has felt our touch. Background is Cassini’s Saturn courtesy NASA/JPL. Asteroid surface is a Tectonics’ Terrain object. Space suit is a Google SketchUp 3DS model created by Max Grueter, exported into Bryce and re-textured. All other models are my own Bryce creations. As always thank you for your interest, thoughtful comments, and encouragement.