Overpopulation . . . IN SPACE!

The government of Futurestan has finally decided to hear the voice of her people. It would seem that the protriotors access to malware, EMP-otovs, and weaponized angry glaring (and thermite. Lots of thermite) caused enough of a thorn in the government's side and generated enough of a presence that the government couldn't censor the media fast enough. Well, and there was that whole "the internet gaining sentience" thing. Either way the government has sat down to listen to their grievances, the biggest of which being a lack of toilets.

Yes it would seem that the expensive and expansive process of carbon harvesting from waste and an expensive and expansive population have put a huge amount of stress on restroom facilities (this is the side of overpopulation that the media won't cover). But the government of Futurestan, along with its allied nations The Democratic People's Republic of the After Times and the United States of the Far Far Away, have managed to concoct a brilliant plan. Put them in space!!!

Using dubious information obtained from the post-sentient internet (he prefers to be called Bob), they have learned that with a population density of New York (a legendary city from the before times) they could fit ~7 billion people into an area the size of the nation-state of Texas.

Ignoring the cost of such a venture (a lot) and the difficulty of accomplishing such a task (high), the governments still ignore the most basic of problems with such a venture.

Problem

The government policy on who gets to go up in the space station, known as the Space Station, isn't so much a policy as it is "let's just sort of cram people in". Doing this with 8 or 9 people would be a problem, let alone ~7 billion. As long as you look sort of healthy and signed a waiver about explosive decompression, you were in.

Question

Assuming Space Station to be a scaled up (present day) New York inside a hermetically sealed box flying around in low Earth orbit (or whatever is a reasonable orbit so as not to interfere with cable television and the alignment of the moon), what would be the major problems faced by its citizens?

Assumables:

You can also assume that:

1. food and supplies are delivered at regular intervals in a quantity that would allow everyone on the station to lead a middle class lifestyle
2. there are enough jobs for everyone
3. there are enough toilets
4. this is physically possible
5. demographic information is similar to present day NYC for all intents and purposes, there just happens to be ~7 billion people rather than 8.4 million

If you assume more things please state what you are assuming please.

posted over 8 years ago

Jake‭

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