Now, these things are somewhat theoretical, and might not work. You have been warned. If you are in a field of expertise that can tell me for sure whether or not these will work, email me.

There are several ways. One is Directed Light Fabrication (DLF)- (quote taken from http://www.roadrunner.com/~mrpbar/moon.html) "DLF is a material fabrication process whereby two intersecting laser beams are brought to focus in conjunction with a stream of metal particles. The point where all three beams meet produces a small bead of molten metal. Since the position of the laser beams can be controlled very accurately, digital files of 3-dimensional objects can be translated into real metal forms." This means that one of these machines can weld together just about anything of moderate size, from a bookcase to all the parts for a car engine. It's fairly small and light, and can make anything. That's my kind of machine.
The other ways use the a similar principle, but operate slightly differently (for instance, spitting out tiny droplets of molten metal instead of using lasers to heat the metal)

This is a purely DarkFoxian (a.k.a. Paul Hegel's) idea, I won't be sneaky, I stole it straight outta MTS's mouth, I'll admit it. But that's not important. Everybody hopefully knows how cars are painted, with layers of paint with metal in it being sprayed on. You geniuses out there will infer from the title that this device has something to do with car paint layering. I have no clue how it is supposed to work or be constructed, so for the sake of so-called realism you people cling to, I won't attempt to include it in short term planning. IT works by spraying a layer of charged atoms onto a target, so that the atoms cling to each other. By arranging particle grids, layers could be built up to create immensely complex machines, and ridiculously powerful computers (I did a quick calculation a little while ago, a computer the size of a laptop would be able to have at least 500 million gigabytes of storage space. In order to drive home the point, that is 500,000,000,000 times the storage capacity of a floppy disk, roughly 1,000,000,000 times the storage capacity of a CD. If this did work it would be immensely cool and if it didn't there's still enough cool stuff on this page for the whole thing to still be immensely cool.

Now, as anyone moderately aquanted with space travel knows, living in space for a long period of time makes the muscles and bones deteriorate. And, they would deteriorate a whole lot more if astronauts didn't excersize about two hours a day for long missions (ie on Mir or the new ISS). Since people in our project are going to be spending a LOT of time in reduced or zero gravity, it would seem a lot of excersize would be necessary. Now, I'm lazy. I don't like exersize, and think that two hours could be better spent. So, here's my system for avoiding exersize in zero/low gravity.

It's a well-known and well-established fact that electricity stimulates nerves and muscles. Physical theripists use this fact to their advantage. Certain frequencies of electricity applied to the body cause muscles to move and strengthen. It works, and much faster than normal excersize. An Olympic weight lifter had this done to him several times a week, and improved so much the judges had him tested three times for steroids. For those skeptics out there, I've had this done to me. It feels sort of weird, but it doesn't hurt, and it does work. The only muscle I'm worried other people will worry about about is the heart; you can't apply the process to that if you want to stand a good chance of survival.

BUT, the only muscles one has to stimulate are the ones that aren't stressed in 0g. Last time I checked, you still have to work slightly to breath, no matter where you are. If someone out there can prove me wrong, email me, plz.

Now, as for bones. If the flexing and relaxing of the muscles during the electric treatments (which might take half an hour three times a week) isn't enough to keep them from decalcifying, I have a backup plan. A somewhat experimental backup plan, but that's just the way life goes. Now, bones are peizoelectric. That means they generate current when they're put under pressure. Scientists have discovered that a positive current stimulates the bones to grow and strengthen (a negetive current, by the way, has no effect). Surround a person in an alternating magnetic field, and you induce a slight current in their body –too slight to be felt. This will encourage the bones to strengthen, and can be done while a person is sleeping.

Well, we've thought up a very cheap and easy way to make electricity, we got the idea from "The Millenial Project". There's a large clear plastic bubble, inflated with nitrogen or something, placed in orbit. Half of it is silvered with aluminum. In the center of it is a glass sphere filled with water. Two pipes lead from the sphere to the middle of the silvered part of the bubble, where there is a turbine. The air pressure inside the sphere and the pipes are very low, so the water boils at a low temprature. That temprature is achieved by positioning the bubble so sunlight reflects off the aluminum on to the sphere. Stick about fifty or a hundered of these together, put them in orbit, add a microwave transmitter or a laser to beam the power to the surface, and you have a remote solar power sattelite.
These things are clean, cheap, light, and easy to produce and transport. They're easy to damage, but they're easy to repair or replace, and a hard plastic shell around them would make them less vunerable, if also harder to transport.

NOTE: they produce at least 17 megawatts constantly, but they are 210 meters in diameter. Theoretically, the power output could be easily doubled with future technologies, but if I was to make one right now and somehow toss it into space, it would produce a bare minimum of 17 megawatts. Not bad, especially because they can be carried by the diver in one go, if packed just right.

I have some theories about space suits that I want to put here. They might be used to make much lighter, better suits.
Well, firstly, what are space suits for? They're to keep you the right temprature in space, instead of about 200 degrees in sun and -100 in shade. They let you breathe, in space where there's no air to breathe. They make a pressurized enviornment. In case you don't know, this is important. At lower air pressures, liquid boils at a lower temprature. Anyone who's tried to cook on top of a mountain knows this. In space, however, where there is no air pressure, water boils at body temprature. Since your body is about 70% water, it is not good for you to be in hard vacuum without some kind of protection. "Not good" being lethal, or at least very dangerous and painful. Suits also help shield you from the debris that is accumilating in orbit, and from some cosmic radiation (e.g. ultraviolet radiation, which, wthout protection, would give you horrible sunburn in about five seconds.)

That is why a space suit is important. NASA space suits work by basically making a small atmosphere around you. This provides the air, temprature control, and pressure. Protection is provided by the armored suit that keeps the air in. However, these suits are heavy, bulky, and the air inside them makes them hard to move in (although research is being done to help this).

I have an idea, and I admit that this may not work, about a new kind of suit. In current suits, pressure comes from the air in the suit. The suit I'm thinking of is skin tight, so the suit itself presses against your skin, and provides pressure to keep the water in your body from boiling (this is the iffy part). There is a rubber collar that goes around your neck, and a helmet much like a NASA helmet hooks on to the collar and provides air (I'm working on designing a less bulky helmet, but it's hard). Woven in to the suit are small water-filled tubes and metal heating elements that run in to the backpack, where a refregerator and heater (or some other kind of heat exchanger, another thing I'm working on) change the temprature of the water, which keeps your body the right temprature. This is nothing new, the same system is used in current space suits.

Another, looser, suit goes over the skin tight one, and it has the insulation and armor. My design for this suit has several layers and is designed to be as flexable as possible. The innermost layer is made of insulation, probably Mylar (that silver stuff they make survival blankets out of). The next layer is elastic. After that are several layers of Kevlar, which is used in white-water rafts and bullet-proof vests. On top of the Kevlar are sewn small hexagonal metal scales, about 1 cm wide and 4 mm thick. The Kevlar is folded in between the scales, so when the elastic streaches the scales move apart but there's still Kevlar in between them. This is the most flexable armor I can think of without compromising the protection too much or making it too hard to repair.

Someone pointed out that the suit would probably need to be too tight to breathe, but this is not true. It wouldn't need to be much tighter than a gymnast's leotard.

Food obviously can't be brought up from Earth, and hydroponically grown plants are on option, but it would take a lot of space and therefore more money invested in launching missions, as well as more money for revolutionary equipment parts. Fortunately, there is an easy way out provided by, well, snaffled from The Millenial Project(see disclaimer). Synthetic foods. The very words bring up visions of flourescent purple Cheeze Whiz and food in toothpaste rolls. Thankfully, we don't have to put up with that. A certain type of blue-green algae, Spirulina, is by weight, 65% protein, 15% carbohydrates, 7% minerals, 6% fat, 5% water, and the rest is ash. Basically, it's one of the most, or the most, not sure there, healthful food(s) in the world, but it's not very appetizing. No matter. Humans, us, are a pretty smart species, we can get around that problem. By mixing the algae on a very small level with genetically engineered Escherischia Coli, some strains of which are poisonous, can provide any possible flavor, color, or texture, and a carbohydrate lattice, we can have a perfect food array, everything as healthful as anything else. Vitamins, since an overdose can be fatal, will be provided just before somebody beds down. Everything will be good for you, from apples to zuchinni, and from chocolate mousse, to cake, to brownies, and so on, we probably couldn't gain a pound if we wanted to, especially because of the electro-muscle therapy, toned to mantain perfect health.