>>23449019
>You want to build (fancy) space colonies in a reasonable timeframe.
What's reasonable when you're building giant habitats that need so much infrastructure that you'd need whole industries that don't exist irl to support the creation of? WHat stupid shit are you writing?
>w-what if l-let spac
Nobody's LETTING anyone. It's an unavoidable thing that space is vast and someone can be building weapons in an advanced future where nuclear fusion reactors can be fit into every Zaku II and anyone with a space ship can push an asteroid some direction or allah ackbar ram with their ship. Anyone can start a war or military dictatorship wih the right weapons. The fuck is this assumption that there's just peace?

Like, I'm reading your previous ones too. Everything else sucks dick too.
>muh colony can't st-stand
Gerard K. O'Neill imagined a 4-5 mile diameter, 20 miles long giant cylinder. Just how much mass do you think it would take to make a difference? If you read his paper, here btw https://nss.org/the-colonization-of-space-gerard-k-o-neill-physics-today-1974/, you'd know he wanted aluminum reinforced by steel cables. Do you think materials science wouldn't advance? If carbon nanotubes or bits of graphene was used, it could be orders of magnitude stronger. Graphene is more brittle but aluminum-graphene composites can be well over 50% stronger for a puny % mass increase. Hell, aluminum-graphene composites can have a slightly lower density too. Just sign a deal for some materials and next time the colony maintenance does repairs have them use better materials. Like just read
>About the thickness, don't forget that you are talking of mass that's actively in rotation, suspended.
Do you have a sense of scale? What mass increase do you think any of other anon suggestions would make? Space age materials which would be several times superior to the proposed models in strength and would allow for similar mass at far stronger same size structure but can't stand more mass