How Humanity Could Colonize Space! (O'Neill Cylinders)

[@Glebatron]

If Jeff legitimately wants to build these then Blue origin should probably invest more into asteroid mining and orbital manufacturing which is difficult without actually being able to reach orbit.

[@Myrddnn]

They should maybe first work on getting anything into orbit.

[@JFrazer4303]

Make upper stages or payloads, to go up on the Superheavy booster. You could do a lot with 120 tons into LEO, going to an NEO.

[@marcozolo3536]

@@Myrddnn Orbital Reef. It's happening

[@brett4264]

@Marco Polo, hahaha, good one! Oh wait, were you being serious?

[@marcozolo3536]

@@brett4264 the hatorade is strong in this one lol

[@markschroter2640]

I think a combination of space docks and planet based colonies is probably the best answer at least until materials technology catches up.

[@JFrazer4303]

The major point against a colony, rather than bases on a planet, is low G. We do not know about it, but we do know that we can make the first gen precursor habitats (at Mars or anywhere), before anyone gets to the 3rd gen big O'Neill cylinder.

[@lucasgrey9794]

No reachable planet will attract people. Only rotating space habitats like O'Neill Cylinders will attract people because they are better than Earth. Mars will NEVER get more than a few rotating researchers.

[@matthewjackson9908]

@@lucasgrey9794 if you have a good enough offer to people with nothing left here in earth i’m sure plenty of people would sign up not to mention the amount of people that would want to join the program just to live a more exciting life i mean of course you would need necessities like engineers,biologist and so on

[@lucasgrey9794]

@@matthewjackson9908 Mars is FAR WORSE than the WORST place on Earth. There will only be a few research stations there.

[@matthewjackson9908]

@@lucasgrey9794 yeah maybe i guess we want know until it happens but a totally different conversation we could try to do very small scale terraforming on mars that could help fix this issue

[@speakthetruth110]

It is a real pleasure to watch a narrated video without loud music & SFX masking what is being said. Thank you for having just the facts ! No useless background audio crap.

[@HowToForYouChannel]

I don't see how we can start building that in the near future... maybe in many many decades from now... and probably by robots!

[@markschroter2640]

Space mining and manufacturing is the next logical step.

[@mooserube1786]

Robots are already being built

[@bernardtaylor7768]

Once mining on the moon gets into full swing then it should open the door for the first cylinder

[@r-saint]

@@bernardtaylor7768 Probably this. We can't lift so much mass from the Earth economically, from the Moon - easy.

[@acemax1124]

Probably 200 to 300 years in the future seeing we don't even have a moon base yet? Then they will have to start mining industries on the moon and maybe even asteroids taking materials to a Earth/Moon LaGrange point where there would be a manufacturing facility similar to the large ship building on Earth but even bigger it would be a true mega structure multiple miles in length.

[@leenewby2808]

So glad I found this channel I am obsessed with the new technology we are developing for future generations

[@cristopherortez3503]

Ik same, I really want to create these future tech

[@leonardgibney2997]

Dream on. At the time of Apollo science pundits predicted we would be shuttling tourists to and from the moon routinely by the year 2000. You really think we're going to the planets?

[@teslaci]

I agree with most of the stuff Elon thinks but building O'Neill Cylinders make more sense than building a colony on Mars. If a war happens on Earth Mars wouldn't be safe either (nor O'Neill Cylinders) as humans or the AI could launch missiles to Mars too and destroy us there. Gravity, atmosphere, radiation are huge issues, which aren't a problem with well built ONC's. If we'd had the technology to build a city on Mars for a million people, that level of technology would perhaps also enable us to build ONC's. Eject the material with a mass driver from Earth/Moon/asteroids and build them in space mostly with robots. Possibly with some advanced nuclear/fusion propulsion you could buy a ticket and travel around the solar system visiting and stopping by at planets and moons. Like folks do with cruise ships. Also with ONC's you can travel possibly even to nearby solar systems. If we are discoverers, I don't see why folks would want to be stuck on Mars or other planets/moons permanently. A future where you could travel to anywhere with huge spaceships is much more inspiring in my opinion.

[@keagaming9837]

I agree, setting up colonies on plants like Mars with permanent residents is good, but we also need something along the lines of Star Trek exploration, never staying at one planet for too long and gathering knowledge along the way. This is why we need to build the enterprise, or some sort of Starship that can allow us to travel throughout the solar system in just one or less lifespan.

[@LeongGunners]

I agree we shouldn't try to turn Mars into our future home. But I honestly can't imagine any scenario where we are able to build those giant cylinders without first setting up shop on Mars. We can't shoot materials out from Earth. And I don't like the idea of stripping our Moon down to provide building materials. The amount needed would seriously mess up the Moon's mass. Who knows in what ways a Moon with a gradually reducing mass would screw Earth's environment up? It might be something like very minimal effects on our ocean tides which would then gradually affect other ways the ecosystem works and snowball into something terribly disastrous for human existence. So, better leave the Moon alone and go to Mars and the asteroids for building materials, in which case then that Martian city would become very necessary, at least for the next 100 years.

[@teslaci]

​@@LeongGunners The mass of Moon is gigantic. It's 73420000000000000000 tonnes. It has a volume of 21958000000 km3. Even an very huge o'neill cylinder like a 20 mile (32km) long and 5 mile (8km) diameter one that could comfortably habitate 100000 humans wouldn't require more than 1 km3 of mass. You could build 1 million of these huge cyclinders which would house 100 billion humans and that still would only reduce the mass of the Moon by 0.005%. So don't worry, this wouldn't have any effect on the Moon or Earth via tides and probably after the first couple cyclinders we would build them elsewhere in even lower gravity environments.

[@Unchainedmaple888]

Yup, basically why not just do both

[@JFrazer4303]

@@LeongGunners The space settlement studies said that the mine on the Moon to build the first small habitat would barely keep one tele-operated bulldozer occupied and would produce an open pit mine a few football fields, a few meters deep. They also said that NEAs appear to be a better source (with what little they knew about them back then, and they're even better now). Note that the ones easiest to reach are also the ones most likely to hit us. If we're talking about benefitting the Earth, preventing impacts is done by gaining control of NEAs, not underground on Mars. In no sense is it easier to soft-land everything to build a city for ~10 k people on Mars. And we still do not know if low gravity is enough to keep us healthy, and it is reckless and irresponsible to go on thinking as if it's the goal, until we know. Long term large scale habitation at Mars will be in an orbiting habitat.

[@charlesbrown6581]

The key to building in space is an infrastructure. Asteroid mining, giant space mirrors, solar powered satellites. Manufacturing cylinders that offer a range of different gravities. The end result might be space colonies for the people who work in space to live. Rich people will continue to want to live on Earth. I could see them buying second homes in space, but not live there full time. Space will be a place of work.

[@JFrazer4303]

No time for idle hands. Paying resort residents might be good, but space colonists have got gold and platinum all around them, if they want it. Gold is so poor a material that it doesn't really help even as conductors. Massive too. Send it to Earth, since they seem to value it. Sorry, you're rich from what again?

[@kyleg3021]

I Feel the best option is a combination of asteroid mining and then using the excess material to build the cylinder inside of the hollowed out asteroid. That way you use the asteroid shell as a radiation and micro meteor Sheild.

[@citizenblue]

We should do all the things. Bases on planets and moons, O'neill cylinders, all of the above

[@davesworld7961]

I think Virtual Reality will be extremely realistic by the time we have any kind of rotating space stations. Vegetables will be grown in stackable trays, meat will be lab grown. People will probably want some limited area of green space for some purposes up there but it won't be a priority.

[@damiangreen299]

Cylinders can be sliced and simplified greatly to get started. They could be tube-like structures that form rings (or partial rings) that rotate around their axis. They will probably never be covered in dirt and water as depicted in these images, except possibly where industrial agricultural applications are necessary. What we learn from building these rings may possibly lead to bigger 'Neil Cylinders, however, I think by the time we get to that point, everything will be so different, we can't possibly predict it yet; Artificial Intelligence is likely to change how we think about what's possible at that point. Smart robot swarms may be able to formulate new plans for how to mine asteroids in the Kuiper belt and return the debris to manufacture new facilities in space... Who knows. Whatever happens, we should also not forget to think about managing Earth in a productive way.

[@markschroter2640]

Since we have only this place to live at the moment I would suggest we only play god with it when it is absolutely needed. In the mean time we can practice on unpopulated places to see what works.

[@josenoya-InspirationNation]

Fascinsting, an exciting future, it’s good that Elon, Bezos and Branson are in competition as they will push each other to be better! Exciting times, thank you 🙏

[@afallingtree9114]

its not much of a competition if one of them sues the other at any chance they get, it kinda turns into a one-sided battle with everyone fighting against the one slowing progress. we need proper competition.

[@josenoya-InspirationNation]

@@afallingtree9114 fair point, totally, competition is what will drive innovation, would be good if they don’t go down the legal routes. As you say it would be great if they just riffed of one another to just get more innovative!

[@SpinoSam]

Perhaps we will have a future where humans are in the trillions across the galaxy with multiple planets and O'Neil Cylinders. Either way, I think we are close to reaching a space equivalent of the Industrial Revolution

[@barrywhite6060]

You didn't take in the cost of shipping everything needed to Mars and scale. The O'Neill Cylinder is meant to be a fully complete colony where you only took in the cost of a small Mars colony, that's an unfair comparison. You need the cost to build an O'Neill Cylinders that can hold let's say 1 million people versus the cost to build a Mars colony with the same population. I'm fairly confident that using those numbers makes it way more cost-efficient to build the Cylinder than going to Mars.

[@LogicAndReason2025]

Another factor that will help speed this concept along will be the development of AI worker drones that won't need all the bio-infrastructure to do the work in space, and can be made in large quantities.

[@purerapp8981]

I have to say it pls don't hate me . When we do get to build these someone make a new country call Principality of Zeon ! For all my Gundam fans out there

[@paulalagar892]

Time to gas these colonies and drop them to australia

[@chelsealaine11.11]

I like the mega structure idea 💡 👌

[@Arabian_Abomination]

Me too

[@overworlder]

Habitats are a good idea. If we can sort them out, we can go anywhere. I don’t think they will all be Elysium-type luxury facilities. There will still need to be healthy gravity environments for the transport, mining, construction, refining, manufacture, services and other industries needed to make habitats in the first place. Even though all that stuff will be highly automated there will still be lots of human technicians. Also, it might be possible to make habitats by shaping and hollowing out asteroids.

[@anhilliator1]

So, more UC-era Space Colonies?

[@zaquevynne4281]

You’re work is so fire dude. Keep it up. Super inspiring.

[@christopherscot3785]

This is great. A nice visualization and explanation of O'Neill's work. Thanks so much. More like this would be great

[@spanke2999]

personally I never understand the "oh lets go to another planet and settle there" thing. you crawl out of a gravity well, you know about the big hurdle such a gravity well is and how important an easy access to space is... and then you jump right back into one. Where is the point in that? Especially if the conditions on the other planet are as bad as they are on Mars and on the Moon.

[@khaccanhle1930]

It's easier to build a base on a planet, than to build a planet for your base.

[@spanke2999]

@@khaccanhle1930 easy is kind of relative if the toughest part is to get to the building site in the first place. just imagine you have to construct a transport system on mars that is able to transport tonnes of resources over hundreds of kilometres in space you just need time and you can literally move mountains of iron around to any place you want.

[@mec-texas9148]

Maybe rotating habitats on Mars for sleep time at 1.x Gs to keep internal systems conditioned?

[@tonyhawk123]

Not sure that would work. Experiments of people confined to a bed for many days showed atrophy. And that was on Earth obviously. So sleeping in simulated Earth G wont fight off atrophy either.

[@mec-texas9148]

@@tonyhawk123 good point. Wonder if weight pockets in garments would help with increasing mass for muscles to work against. Also I was mostly thinking of the part about blood vessels and innards needing gravity to function correctly. Skeletal muscles require the greater mass to move equal to Earth gravity.

[@JFrazer4303]

Weighted clothes and hard exercise don't stop the really disturbing long-term effects of microgravity. We have no data on low G. If the exercise and sleep rooms were in full G, or maybe more... Still, requiring that, makes it a "base", not a colony. It's not where people will live long-term. Down on Mars would be maybe a branch of the university city and resort in a Stanford Torus habitat orbiting Mars.

[@tonyhawk123]

@@JFrazer4303 thats my take too. A rotating spaceship orbiting Mars. Most people on the spaceship in the comfort of Earth G and within realtime comms range of a small team of people (and remote controlled robots) on the planets surface. But that said, all the good stuff will be buried deep inside Mars (as is the case with Earth), so the spaceship being closer to an asteroid makes more sense to me. To me, Mars has little benefit of anything, given colonies are problematic due to low gravity, and mining is problematic because its buried deep. There's more rare materials on a single asteroid than could be mined from Mars in a lifetime.

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

Why just for sleep? You could make the entire habitat rotate, and people just live their whole lives in the cylinder. Have a sideways force of 0.93g and floors at an angle of 20 degrees, and you get earth gravity in your cylinder. Considering this is being compared to an O'Neill cylinder, it will definitely be significantly cheaper to build. Operational costs will be higher, as you have to maintain the rotation, so an economist will have to do an analysis on whether it's worth it.

[@richardpoynton4026]

O’Neil cylinders would make ideal generation ships for interstellar travel, imo

[@linyenchin6773]

This is the Gundam path, the ideal way to ensure autonomy and is a first step toward absorbing all the power of the sun.

[@JFrazer4303]

Dyson never wrote about the bad S.F. solid contiguous sphere around a Sun. he doesn't like being associated with it. He wrote about a cloud filling the ecliptic out 1/10th light year, of habitats orbiting the Sun.

[@paulalagar892]

SIEG ZEON!!!

[@Zer0C0re]

That's the biggest concern that I have about these, the question you posed towards the end of the video. I honestly think that human greed, unrestricted and unchecked as it tends to be, along with human ego, self-righteousness, and a tendency towards personal biases would doom these things, if ever constructed, to be little more than floating luxury homes for a select few billionaires, trillionaires (once those do come about), oligarchs, and other members of the famous, ultra-rich, and powerful. At the same time, those from poorer stock would be left behind on a polluted world, the exact same fate as most suffer throughout the plot of the film, "Elysium", as you mentioned before. Also, even if these cylinders were made open (pardon the pun on cylinder types) to the poorer masses, you'd still eventually wind up with distrust between those still on Earth versus those on the space colonies. In addition, the space colonies may want to seek recognition as an independent sovereign nation in space, which the governments of Earth may deny, thus starting a war in space between those on the cylinders and those still on the planet (then all it takes someone to start yelling "Sieg Zeon!" and the next thing you know, Australia has a giant hole in its east coast, but I digress). That does bring up an interesting point though: who or what is in charge of maintaining the orbits of these space stations around Earth, Lagrange Point stability or not, and could the station be hijacked by everything from enemy soldiers to terrorists to even rebelling/disgruntled extremist groups of civilians? I imagine even with the inherent stability of a Lagrange Point-based orbit, the the stations would still have RCS thrusters to adjust station pitch, yaw, and roll (in addition to the high-torque motors spinning counterweights on either end of the cylinder). If these were taken over, could the Cylinder be hijacked, the population either captured or killed, and the whole station used as a giant projectile to destroy things either on Earth or on the Moon, or even by crashing it into another colony controlled by some other group that the hostile forces controlling the hijacked station have a personal/political/ideological gripe with? If so, who or what would or could stop them? I don't doubt that O'Neill Cylinders are possible even with current engineering techniques, but the creatures that would inhabit them would make building them, sustaining them, and protecting them impossible due to the same vices, failings, and problems (personal, social, economic, and everything in between) that has spelled the downfall and destruction of societies since civilization began. It's not because it's necessarily impossible to build something like this or even keep it going for centuries, even millennia or longer, but humans don't seem to even be up to maintaining what they already have, even for the duration of a few generations, let alone thousands of years. If I could invent a form of suspended animation, like cryostasis keeps being shown as in science-fiction (just as an example; I know cryostasis sounds like a pipe dream at best IRL), I would imagine I'd wake up to see one of these things built, only to go back to sleep, wake up again not even a century later to find that once-magnificent megastructure reduce to a pile of twisted metal and broken solar panels crashed onto the Moon's surface, bits strewn over a debris field the size of Rhode Island, and the only thing would come to my mind would be that famous quote from Percy Shelly's poem, "Ozymandias", "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

[@SR-kj7fz]

i love how people fight over which hypothetical situation is more impossible to achieve ..XD

[@khaccanhle1930]

If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with wings - said people like you in the 1890s.

[@SR-kj7fz]

@@khaccanhle1930 kid neither u get the meaning of this quote nor you know anything about economics or sub-orbital space flights, you are just one of those high end consumers who wait for technological achievements without actually thinking the science , funding and reality to get there .

[@GadreelAdvocat]

The dual opposed wheel might be better with spokes to center with an occasional rotator on each or solid wheel habs. It could also be made into an artificial grav ship if propulsion is put in the middle between the two wheel habitats.

[@JFrazer4303]

a wheel could be smaller than the 1.7km diameter Stanford Torus, if we accept higher spin rate, but that does start to weed out the people who cant easily adapt. If we can push asteroids around, then we can put reaction engines on a habitat. It really makes more sense to send a "seed" factory and shipments of tools and parts to co-orbit an asteroid in the Belt or Trojans or among Jupiter's Moons, if you want a habitat there. Send such an asteroid being mined, to Mars orbit, if its moons don't have enough metals.

[@damonhawkes2057]

Awesome video. One point: you don't HAVE to build them at a Lagrange point, you could also build them in low earth orbit. This would mean you're inside earth's magnetosphere, which helps protect from solar radiation. It's what O'Neill himself suggested for later designs.

[@whotknots]

An aspect of material properties I did not notice you touch upon is a phenomenon known as hydrostatic equilibrium. As I understand the matter even subject to the most carefully regulated conditions metals and their alloys and also ceramics created by being melted and molded within the gravity and oxidizing atmospheric conditions prevalent on Earth result in those materials having relatively chaotic crystalline structures which diminish their inherent strength, purity and other characteristics. In the microgravity and virtual vacuum of space hydrostatic equilibrium results in formation of a spherical crystalline conformation that can potentially impart extreme homogeneity along with accommodating almost absolute purity. This in turn can result in refinement of metals and ceramics along with creation of alloys that could possess properties such as strength and so forth which are substantially greater than any of their counterparts produced on Earth. If, the projected maximum diameter for O'Neill Cylinders is currently predicated upon alloys produced on Earth. Then it may be that significantly larger structures are already possible and feasible simply by refining and producing materials requisite to the creation of things like O'Neill cylinders in space.

[@user-tp9gy8kt2q]

Thanks for this thought provoking video, I really enjoyed it. Please back it up with another one covering the same material - Oneill Cylinders appear to be the most positive and realistic future that we have yet imagined for ourselves. 46 years ago, when this concept was first seriously considered, our materials and technology were barely enough to make this concept even plausible. I mean, they even had windows (miles long) figured in.. But today we have better materials to choose from and automation that could make this happen. Even now we have lighting figured out well enough to forgo the need for all those crazy space windows.. What will we have available to us when we finally have the infrastructure to take on such a project - graphene, fusion power, etc. Or, will we fall even further into our games (artificial reality) to the point where we quit caring about the increasingly dystopian reality we will be building around ourselves. But it is pretty fun to imagine what all kinds of different worlds we would build for ourselves, and nature preserves we might build for all the different wildlife we would like to have with us. Imagine the incredible travel opportunities that could be made available by passing from one completely different controlled climate to another - from Paris to Hawaii to a Swiss alpine forest and then back to the Oregon coast. All just one right after the other. Do another video, man..

[@TheRafeeicious]

I love your content!!!

[@DrDave327]

I believe it is incorrect to state graphene is brittle. I believe I read that it is flexible and extremely tough.

[@olnbgy4444]

A Stanford taurus is much more feasible with our current technology. It's smaller but still holds thousands of people.

[@anhilliator1]

So long as it doesn't end up like Laplace.

[@RussW_Comments]

The first "O'neill Cylinder" will probably be Phobos or Deimos ... I'm not sure whether its spin will mimic Earth or Mars.

[@JFrazer4303]

The first one at Mars. The first city or colony or settlement at Mars. A university city / resort. Using aerobraking at Mars, its moons are probably among the easiest, and the easiest known for sure, to be outgassing from buried water. A shipment launched from here, can send more payload to them than just about anywhere but some NEOs. If Mars' moons don't have enough metals, there'll be a near-Mars asteroid that can send shipments or bring the whole thing into Mars orbit.

[@solifugus]

It's a mistake to seek structure in space with dense materials (like steel). Dense materials are useful against outside pressure and gravity--the exact opposite of space. On the other hand, fibrous materials are both lighter with much stronger tensile strength and polymer resins are better at keeping us safe from space radiation. For example, hemp fiber in PVC resin. This would be very light weight, very strong (as a balloon), hold pressurized air securely, and also help reduce space radiation. Also, this will be far quickly and cheaper to build. Build it on Earth and just inflate it in space. Use a railgun to shoot bagged regolith

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

Long Term, O'Neill Cylinders are probably going to be the most common place for humans to live. We might see McKendrees and Matrioshka worlds, or even a Topopolis, but their efficiency in terms of matter requirements are not significantly greater than O'Neill cylinders, so I can't imagine they will ever go away. More than likely, it will become an oddity to live on a planet, rather than the other way around.

[@anhilliator1]

Sounds like the Universal Century.

[@johnella2883]

I keep remembering a few years back the mysterious space object Oumuamua, the cylindrically-shaped asteroid that passed through the Solar System's ecliptic-rather rapidly-on its way to...somewhere else. If one day humankind decides to develop hollowed- out asteroids for colonizing deep space would they come up with something like Ouamuamua? With a similar fate, maybe?

[@dove5591]

Why no one can prove that gravity theory so that mankind can make planets 😶

[@charlessmith2643]

O'Neill cylinders are a wonderful idea, what you're talking about making total biospheres miniature ecosystems that would be very complicated and has not yet been properly looked at

[@nicolegambini2273]

Thanks for posting this video

[@marshallmcclendon4175]

Both, an O'Neill for Mars, could make things a lot easier. Mine all three and transport it first from Earth too the moon.

[@kokomo9764]

That makes no sense.

[@aaronak2005]

Great video! Can you do a video of a single stage to orbit space station on a SpaceX super heavy booster?

[@JFrazer4303]

A "wet launch" or a dry launch station could be on top of the upper stage. We put up Skylab in a day.

[@davidborges2193]

At 8:40 you mention that having day night at the same rate as earth is necessary is wrong since on earth the day night ratio is different depending on the place. And apart from that some Nordic countries have winter where people don't see the sun for months. And millions of people function very well under this condition. So lunar day is not that bad since it's 1month instead of 6months like in Nordic countries.

[@wingsley]

Not a bad video, but there was one goof: you were talking about the LaGrange points for the Earth-Moon area, but you showed a map of the LaGrange points for the Earth-Sun gravitational relationship. O'Neill wanted to establish a colony at the Earth-Moon L5 point. O'Neill cylinders, like any other kind of space colony, are most likely to happen if there is an industrial motivation for living in space. That is to say, space stations will appear when there are larger and larger numbers of industrial jobs in space, and thus, large numbers of people living and working in space. If the Moon's low gravity incentivizes robotic industry on the Moon, the working people would likely inhabit O'Neill cylinders at the Earth-Moon L1 or L2 points, or a halo orbit around those points. Then the people in the industry would still be relatively close, and could control the robots via "virtual reality" telepresence. It's unclear how long it would take to build an O'Neill cylinder, much if which would be done by robotic operations. How long would it take to construct a multi-kilometer-scale steel tube? As long as it takes for an army of robots (presumably fabricated on the Moon) to 3D-print the cylinder's hull. The real question isn't how many centuries it will take. The question is why aren't we talking about constructing much smaller orbital rotating space colonies so that we gain practical experience before we "go big". The Space Race could do a more near-term video about the simplest, most basic rotating-habitat design, the Von Braun "spinning wheel" colony, followed up by another story about Kalpana One, a much smaller, truncated O'Neill Cylinder.

[@emphazema84]

Yes, I would like more space super structure info

[@proteslapower6754]

This time what went on in Vegas will not stay in Vegas!! I met both Britney Spears and Elon Musk early in 2000 at Bellagio. She just stared at me as she was singing on stage and I was standing in an archway above and nearby. A few days later he came up to me and started asking me questions about what I was doing there, in Hawaii and Las Vegas during that time and if I was a gambling man? I stated, "I was on vacation and I only like to bet on things that are worth betting on!" I had earned these trips by qualifying reward points at my work. He asked, "What kind of work is it that you do?" I said, "Commercial energy saving promotions but I had been schooled in Automotive Marketing Business Administration and worked in that field for several years as well." He asked me, "If I had millions of dollars to spend what would be the most innovative businesses that could help humanity?" We talked about electric cars, we talked about solar energy and so many other subjects for over an hour. Even commercial space exploration for the consideration of colonization. That way all of humanity's eggs are not in one basket in case of of another world war, asteroid strike, major climate change, etc. These we're very expensive and ambitious businesses to become successful at. Therefore we had to talk about ways of keeping a low overhead in advertising, distribution and the manufacturing. He said, "They were all very good ideas and that they should be done!" He said he had already made hundreds of millions off of a couple internet companies he started. "One of them was PayPal," he stated. Not that I had really done a lot of online banking or e-transfers at that time I didn't think much of it, until I noticed online about a year later that I could buy something off the computer with my PayPal card! Unfortunately I had just received a promotion as regional manager with the company I was working with. This made me let Elon know that I had to wait for a few years before I could assist further. I keep on sending out messages, hoping that he will get one and reply back. I will probably have to keep on trying, he gets more messages in a day then I would in five years! It is very inspiring to me to have a conversation with someone and they dedicate the next 20 years to making our conversation reality! We also talked about becoming your own best supplier and starting businesses that help your existing business. A type of slingshot effect that he has incorporated very well. It is so ambitious and amazing that he was willing to put pretty much all of his money where his mouth is and just make it happen with a consistent dedication. Congratulations Elon and I am looking forward to working with you again, one day in the near future! And of course Britney I always wish her well and would enjoy meeting her again as well! Shoot for the Moon then Mars and then we will end up amongst the Stars! If you would like to learn more of these topics let me know. [e-mail]

[@krm398]

you would never start a cylinder first. you'd go to the L5 and build a small refinery. then buy ores mined by miners in and on the asteroids and refine them into usable metals and stockpile those for future use. the refinery can be much much smaller but still need a crew to operate it and miners to haul the ores in and sell them there. yes that's jobs in space and since it would be a long term thing then hundreds if not thousands of jobs would be made there immediately.

[@jemayeljuma2534]

This channel is great! 👍 This is like Isaac Arthur for simpletons like me! Keep it up!😊

[@srennielsen680]

I read O'Neill book many years ago, and I liked it, but there are some issues. First the physics in such a cylinder - if you stand in such a cylinder with an apple in your hand and then open your hand, the apple will follow its tangent and hit the rotating cylinder close to where the cylinder have moved you too, very naturally. But if you throw the apple up in the air, then it too will hit the rotating cylinder, but maybe far from where you are at that time. If you throw the apple against the rotating direction, you can get really weird results. Jeff will never be able to play tennis in such a cylinder - and with 1000 teenagers it can be a hell! Second is that all the art shows the sun coming directly in the cylinder, but what about cosmic radiation ? Third is that the food has to be made in the cylinders, but there will be some problems to lead the water to all the plants. And last - my own calculation, and why I dont think there are any planet B. If we move 100 million people to such cylinders (or Mars), we will go from 7.8 to 7.7 billion people, and it will only help very little at pollution and use of rawmaterials.

[@ComaTwin]

Considering how far into the future the realization of such incredible mega projects may become a reality, many of us would be just as happy to see a permanent colony right next door, on the Moon, during our lifetime.

[@georgemoniz1100]

Build the first one than the rest becomes easier like a snow ball.

[@jjdean6511]

Who in the hell would want to live in a giant rotating cylinder?? Please raise your hands for yes, and please raise your hands for no.

[@bill29-g3b]

Rogue planets are our best bet for long term travel across the galaxies. There's alot of them, too.

[@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV]

My vote is a nice moon base first.. then the belt... I'm sure the geologists will want a Mars base too... We need to sniff out some nice rock formations on the moon, caves, craters and tubes, somewhere to call home.... :) I think looking down the O'neill cylinder looks great and isn't disorienting or disturbing at all, but making space habitats when there is so much empty real estate out there, seems a waste... The idea that billionaires can hide in space is idiotic. They will be 100% dependent on earth for centuries - humans have had zero success with self contained environments. I disagree that O'neill cylinders will only be playgrounds for the rich, it may have a first class section, but it would also have tourist markets, zero-G sports centers and a lot of industry tacked on to it..

[@WilliamDye-willdye]

Nitpick: the illustration at 11:37 shows Earth-Sun Lagrange points, not the Earth-Luna points that O'Neill and the L5 Society were talking about.

[@psychicspy]

The second object I discovered resembles the classic flying saucer in shape. This appears to be a 2-mile diameter "saucer". It has a tail section and a bulge that might be the bridge/ cockpit. A second one is buried under mud a short distance away. 24°55'24"N 170°11'31"W

[@erideimos1207]

Very good! Subbed :)

[@mlt6322]

Here's a shortcut, launch about 5 starships into orbit and dock them at the noses to form a 5 spoke circle and connect them with a latis framework. build a central docking tube and at the next joint attach 5 more starships and so on. The first 5 could serve as a new ISS and as new 5 ship hubs are added it can become a colony in space.

[@Forsworcen]

My favorite megastructure is an Aldersen Disk

[@ventusfox]

look at gundam, the meaning of war and yeah those space colonies

[@TactownGirl]

an obvious problem with an O'Neil cylinder that I never see people talking about is: What if it stops spinning? What if something breaks and it stops spinning, and has to start up again? Ya'll can say that wouldn't happen, or couldn't happen but if the ship relies on mechanical parts to spin then it's capable of breaking. So what do they do if it stops spinning? There's a lot of open area in the middle for stuff to float into, and then come crashing down when it starts spinning again. At least with the Stanford Torus there's only so high you can float? I'm not saying this problem would keep a ship from like, existing but I do think it's a question we need to answer, of for no other reason then peoples peace of mind. As important as the spinning is, I do think it would be on of the most protected functions of the ship, and less likely to stop spinning, but we still need some kind of system in place to respond to the emergency of the spin stopping. A good social system that the inhabitance of the ship keep going could solve this problem. Maybe people use little jet packs to zip around and gather people up before they start the spin again? How a writer answers this question tells us a lot about their world. because this is fiction and bezos will never build one. Let's be real.

[@plumetheum7017]

Uhh... an object in motion stays in motion. A Cylinder wouldn't just "stop" rotating.

[@Trevors_Dragons]

Hopefully in the future we have a multi planetary existence. I picture earth ending up like a mix of Nabu and Corasant from star wars.

[@CyberJellos]

I still think cloud cities on venus are the best option for colonization. Similar to earth gravity, good pressure and temperature at the right altitude, etc. Making aerostats on venus would be a lot easier than mega structure oneil cylinders.

[@anhilliator1]

All fun and games until some schmucks over at L2 decide to drop one of these on Earth

[@fraser-uh2ln]

you could technically make like a forest with some lakes scattered around on the cylinders without telling anyone so then they can still get that feeling

[@AngeloCarloARojas]

Pls create a video about closed type space habitats.

[@khaccanhle1930]

If Bezos wants to colonize space, he should try to spend more money on developing hardware and less on developing lawsuits against those who ARE developing hardware.

[@ilkoderez601]

O'Neill was all about saving the Earth. It almost seems like that's was his motivation in the first place.

[@KOKOBC]

These cylinders are the future, but not the ultimate future. I think one day we will be able to build artificial planets

[@JFrazer4303]

It is incorrect to say that O'Neill's largest colonies would be built by now. His earliest colony was his "Island One" adaptation of the Bernal sphere: ~800 meters diameter. It is very much incorrect to say that it would be "significantly more difficult" than colonizing Mars. The largest rotating pressure vessel we could make with well known materials and engineering (as of the '70s) is 30+km diameter (O'Neill's book and the NASA studies). The "Island 3" giant "O'Neill cylinder" was presented as a purely hypothetical extrapolation. Not impossible, but not to be started for maybe 50 years after the first one is being built. He said that by that time, it'll probably look like any other "futurist" ideas from the 1900s about today. We already know they won't work. Everyone defaults right to the Island 3, and usually uses it as a straw man about why they're not possible. They are not a utopian vision. They're hard nuts & bolts and engineering in a world of people, who'll not be utopian. The ability to make such things in space means an end to shortages of raw materials. "Rare" and "precious" metals won't be. The "cost" of an eventual large 3rd generation won't be $ or money used today, it'll be paid for already by mining NEOs. What it means for human politics when there's always more room, always more materials, never a shortage of energy and resources might be anything, but remember that "utopian" means impossible. As for any debate about colonizing space or down on other bodies: Prove that we can live long-term and stay healthy in low G. That's *proof*, not S.F., not wishes and hopes and try it and wait & see. Not maybe in the future biomechanically engineering ourselves. Prove that first, and we can move on to talk about why O'Neill habitats are still the better or only option for living off-Earth. As of the '70s, we know for proven scientific fact, that no new inventions are needed to build these. The same cannot be said for living in low G or terraforming planets. There's rubbery terminology involved when people go from talking about a base on the Moon and then we're planning a city for a million+. A "base" on the Moon or on Mars is not a "colony" to which people will retire for the rest of their lives and raise children. We are not going from bases and maybe even branches of the resort and university city in orbit, to a a city or settlement or colony on Mars or the Moon for less outlay or in less time than starting to mine NEOs and building up to being able to make an early O'Neill habitat. Musk frequently uses red herrings about SSPS as well as about O'Neill habitats. A common one we hear from prominent Mars advocates Zubrin and Musk is that we want to use rockets to lift a 10 billion ton colony to L-5. We might not be dishonest enough to say they want to soft-land it on Mars. Windows in a shielded habitat in space cannot simply be a transparency to let you look out, either on the Moon or Mars or in a space colony. They're a straight line in for cosmic rays that require almost 2m of packed sand (~1.6m concrete) as shielding. The "dark undertone", of abandoning Earth and moving into space is another straw man red herring, that never comes from those knowledgeable about the real prospects in space. It's always about using the resources of space to make things better down here. Bezos and Musk both say so, as did O'Neill. With the resources of the inner Solar system, we could not only survive but thrive during +6 degree C warming, or an ice age, or Yellowstone.

[@Riteaidbob]

Like man is going to live in harmony in some vacuum tube in space.

[@bobwalsh3751]

8:07 source for this footage? I wanna see more!

[@srspower]

Definitely an escape for rich people. Lots of potential for long distance travel though.

[@toddjacksonpoetry]

Very fine video, and a great way for me to begin to update myself about this tech I've advocated for so long. Especially nice touch about graphene for the superstructure. One objection, when you discuss global climate catastrophe: anyone aware of space settlements really ought to be aware of the Space SunShade concept - very nearly The Other Big Space Engineering Concept, and likewise to be made from lunar and asteroidal material. It too would be immense, but simpler than a Space Settlement. We need to understand that the capacity to build a Space Settlement almost certainly presupposes the capacity to build a Space Sunshade that, once completed, would reduce Solar irradiance upon the Earth by 2%, ending and reversing global warming within months. I wrote and published a "double sonnet" about the Space SunShade , "We Who Steer The Weather of The World," and have posted a video - one of my early ones, admittedly - about it. The names Early and Angel really do rank with the name O'Neill; glad to have enfolded their names into the poem. Again, fine discussion, fine video.

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

9:59 “…things on Earth will get pretty bad…” Space travel, O’Neill cylinders, Moon colonies, etc, depend on stability on Earth. Complete self-sufficiency in space is unlikely for a few more centuries. Until then any space venture will be thoroughly dependent on support launches from Earth. Launching rockets is a big project that depends on lots of moving parts on Earth. War can take everyone’s attention. If the environment crumbles enough to make agriculture precarious people will focus on getting food. Any space program is analogous to the top floor of a skyscraper. If the bottom few floors crumble the top floors are done.

[@roys3769]

We need all options to be on the table to survive as a species! Consciousness must continue!

[@stevekillgore9272]

The only part of Bezos I appreciate , his space advocacy !

[@indigoeyes777]

Spooky children dream of living in o'Neil cylinders

[@SmeeGuitar]

Aerogel is super expensive. You can forget that idea :D

[@Neuralatrophy]

Biggest issue I see with building an Oneal cylinder is where the materials come from... You can't reasonably bring that much material up from the surface so it would have to be captured asteroids, another feat we need to learn and master. An Oneal cylinder has the benefit of being a very realistic option for a generational ship in the effort of reaching far away planets.

[@akapilka]

Stripping Mars and the Moon, obviously.

[@barryjayleon]

The simple expedient of eliminating windows and mirrors and setting up artificial (full spectrum) lighting with perhaps OLED virtual skies, more than doubles the potential land area of the cylinder. Making the land area multi layered within the cylinder increases the factor many fold. (how high does a virtual sky need to be for a decent visual look? - maybe a few hundred feet?) Thinking more like dense urban living and not looking rural or suburban is much more realistic. Using inner (much lower gravity) levels for vertical agriculture and aquaculture, potentially easily feeds extraordinarily large populations. I envision a single cylinder hosting a population greater than NYC, and having all the necessary components of living, working and playing within the same structure.

[@Earthmoonstars-el6rd]

🤔🚀🌎Future asteroid mining for starters.

[@Jay92master]

It’s like moksha, paradise and heaven on space. But it shows day and not no natural disasters

[@thetobyntr9540]

Dealing with gravity wells is dumb when you can just choose not to and get everything cheaper, Mars is harder to deal with than just space since it's like space but also chemically toxic, and the dust erodes moving parts and would screw up your lungs. Mars will likely be treated like Antarctica is now when we have the Moon, or near Earth space settled. The math for rotating habitats is simple and uses lots of the same stuff as suspension bridges. Being closer to Earth also lets you make use of a lot of infrastructure, and the Moon is easier to send rescue missions to. I'd much rather live in a rotating space habitat that is designed for human habitation and gardening, or in a lava tube on the Moon where I can theoretically fly with no assistance other than on growing the wings. Settling Mars is about the same, but harder, and theres too much gravity for most to do much more than jump really high if youre still adapted to 1G. Any green spaces (which we psychologically need) would be as hard to build on Mars, or harder. It'll take millenia to terraform Mars and if it's got life still then we will probably study it like Antarctica. Venus is a better option for terraforming and about as easy to really terraform. Also mercury is better for mining, and you can use a solar sail to send stuff back to Earth almost constantly while Mars makes gaps of over a year unavoidable.

[@boogiebonefan]

How about a captured asteroid that has been hollowed out? I first encountered that idea when I saw a book in second grade, 1963-1964, about space exploration. I still think that idea has merit. Find the right super gigantic space rock, shape and composition, mine its ore from one end to the other leaving an appropriately sized interior space with openings at its ends to allow reflected sunlight into it. Then spin it for artificial gravity. It may be a more efficient way of going about the space colony business. Or not.

[@JFrazer4303]

We don't know how pure or homogenous it is. Shoring it up and digging into it might be more trouble than grinding it to dust and making concrete and metals for a first-generation small habitat.

[@boogiebonefan]

@@JFrazer4303 of course the asteroid chosen for a habitat would be thoroughly evaluated for its composition before going through the trouble of capturing and transporting it to the desired destination. And I concede that the process of capturing and transporting an asteroid is an enormous task in itself. But there’s nothing easy about any of this. I vividly recall a certain president who claimed that we choose to go to the moon and do other things not because they’re easy…

[@12345678927164]

So, he just played Mass Effect? Got it.

[@leonardgibney2997]

He's saying we should contaminate space too.

[@JorgeLausell]

McKendree Cylinder comparisons? Not an either or, on the Moon/Mars or a megastructure... & we can build a 1st cylinder on either Moon & Mars. Say on Mars use a boring machine to get into a large lava tube, spun up and everything. Spun up since those cylinders would need to be in a 'sleeve' anyways. Moon too. Find a huge cave & bore down to it, or set up tucked into the side of a large creator & build one along it. We can then mine & manufacture on the Moon & Mars to build them. You know once we are space, I think there will be so much materials, so much new tech & manufacturing, that is so much wealth creation, that will help us save our planet.

[@rygy82]

I feel like, if it takes generations to even travel to another system, an O'Neill-style structure would be the only viable option for sending large colonial groups to other planets.

[@edl617]

Sounds like the next step up from the Von Braun wheel first conceptualized in 1909.

[@TgamerBio5529]

Must at least be able to travel through space like a spaceship but with artificial gravity just in case if I star explodes or shower of meteors 🤔

[@linyenchin6773]

Could graphite or graphene based super materials allow the 8k diameter to reach 16? I think 0.25 rpm is better for setting the tempo of our circadian rhythms.

[@SailorBarsoom]

O'Neill actually suggested that the maximum diameter using materials like steel, aluminum, and glass would be twelve miles (19.3 Km). The habitat described in this video he called "moderate."

[@linyenchin6773]

@@SailorBarsoom thanks!

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

I believe this calculation has been done. McKendree Cylinders 1000km in diameter are the limit I believe.

[@rationald6799]

Future of humanity

[@proteslapower6754]

If you're wondering about low earth gravity on Mars then there's going to be some experiments that will be done. A planet is a sustainable structure. If we need to develop our own spinning habitats within this structure to retain our strength then we will do so.

[@georgeno5300]

Let's start now!

[@Sammy-zj6oj]

imagine it stops spinning

[@patrickmchargue7122]

An idea for the future where we expand into space.

[@gollaanvith7287]

Sir it os super video

[@jasondanielfair2193]

"industrial hellscape" lol. imagine moving to space and having to have a car and live in the suburbs. idk what's worse

[@davidcau40]

Nice video. Has anyone ever considered NOISE POLLUTION in à o Neil cylinder? Seems to me if you have ambient noise of people right above you as well as to the side , the noise could be overwhelming. Not even considering the echo that would be generated inside a cylinder

[@hobberteevee7309]

I think we'll probably have a voluntary matrix-like situation. Everyone will live in a simulation indistinguishable from reality, basically on permanent life support~ machines and maybe a number of humans outside manage the system. It'd likely be the most space/resource friendly method.