I-WORLD (IMAGINED WORLD)
I-World can become either a future home or a shelter for humankind in case of disasters that make Earth uninhabitable. I-World is an Earth-size and self-sustaining area, orbiting around the Earth and located half-way between the Earth and the Moon. There are several features that make I-World an ideal place for our future generation:
Gravity: Since I-World is in space, there's no gravity. However, this orbital habitat will simulate gravity by rotation and the use of centrifugal force. This means we can easily create Earth gravity in I-World. Also, spinning such an Earth-size habitat seems to be an easy task due to zero gravity. Air: The air in I-World will be at one third atmospheric pressure. There will be 60% oxygen, nearly 40% nitrogen and less than 1% carbon dioxide. The humidity will be kept between 30% and 50%. Heat: Excess heat will be released through heat radiating panels Materials: Materials for building the habitat could be imported from the Moon or asteroids or comets that orbit near the Earth. The Moon contains oxygen, silicon and metals while asteroids and comets contain metals, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. Power: Unlike Earth and some other planets, sunlight is available 24/7 in I-World. This means we can rely on solar energy for electricity, fuel, etc… to support our life. Weather: For agriculture, since there's no night (and even no weather and season), efforts should be made so that plants can adapt to this new environment. Alternatively, we can make weather with cloudscapes and rainstorms. As a result, we have a complete control on weather, a superior advantage that we can not find on Earth. Convenient travel to Earth: Since I-World is located just half-way between the Earth and the Moon, it takes less than a week to visit our homeworld with present chemical rockets.
The task of construction and maintenance of I-World will be done totally by self-replicating and self-repairing robots without human intervention. Raw materials for creating these robots could be transported from the Earth. The parent generation has a program stored on a memory tape that directs the robot to collect materials, use sculpting tools and plaster cast to make different parts then assemble the parts into a duplicate of itself by carbon dioxide laser welding system. Finally, the parent robot will copy the contents of its memory tape into the empty duplicate's. There is a large parabolic mirror mounted on each robot to focus sunlight for its power. A solar-powered and multi-speed cart is attached permanently to the robot's body for mobility. Since the robot will reproduce itself continuously without human intervention, one of the difficulties is how to limit the number of robots in I-World. One possible solution is introducing death. A self-replicating virus will be originally programmed to the memory tape. The robot will die when more and more virus take control its memory tape. The whole circuit system inside the robot will also be broken upon death. The dead robot will then be disassembled and recycled for raw materials to create a new one. However, in order to apply this solution, engineers and scientists should first be able to balance the birth and death rate (time for replicating vs. time for virus invasion).