1970s Space Colony Art by NASA

5 Comments by on 28th Aug 10

NASA Ames completed a number of space colony studies in the 1970s and competitions we held for designers regularly. This brilliant set of illustrations had the restriction of being large enough to house 10,000 people and the images do not diverge from what one would think a space colony might look like if it were to be conceptualized today.

Humanity has the power to fill outer space with life. Today our solar system is filled with plasma, gas, dust, rock, and radiation — but very little life; just a thin film around the third rock from the Sun. We can change that. In the 1970′s Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University showed that we can build giant orbiting spaceships and live in them. These orbital space colonies could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. In time, we may see hundreds of thousands of orbital space settlements in our solar system alone. Building these settlements will be an evolutionary event in magnitude similar to, if not greater than, ocean-based Life’s colonization of land half a billion years ago.

[Click the thumbnails below to see the larger image]

[Source: NASA]

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Andrew

I love that despite the trillions upon trillions of dollars it would take to construct these colonies, they can't manage to house too many colonists because they all have to have 2.5 baths and a backyard. American 20th c. manifest destiny is extended into space.

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Andrew

I love that despite the trillions upon trillions of dollars it would take to construct these colonies, they can't manage to house too many colonists because they all have to have 2.5 baths and a backyard. American 20th c. manifest destiny is extended into space.

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