O'Neill Colonies - An Animated Tour

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Just amazing!

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks, Isaac

[@TheIsaacLester]

I know I'm on the right track when I find the other Isaac lurking on cool space videos!

[@SweetNsour6]

This has got to be one of the coolest renderings of the O'Neill colonies that I've ever seen. Maybe the best one that's ever existed! Thank you for letting us see what your interpretation of the perfect future is!

[@spaceboffin]

Wow, thanks!

[@ckordiolis]

Beautiful work Mark! Someone in Hollywood should hire you.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks so much! @@ckordiolis

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

I always have trouble imaging the scale of megastructures, this was a big help, thx.

[@spaceboffin]

You're welcome

[@HawkGTboy]

I’d like to see a movie set on one of these. The whole plot of the movie would play out inside the station and the fact that it was taking place on a giant rotating space cylinder wouldn’t even matter. But you’d see it in the background. The actual story could be a love story, or a murder mystery, or a comedy, etc.

[@rohe1790]

Kinda reminds me of movies like blade runner, when the city is sorta its own character

[@germansniper5277]

You should check out the book 'Vacuum'!

[@ethanbenner6995]

Or the show Gundam

[@repc1ty]

you should check out the movie Elysium

[@richardpoynton4026]

@@HawkGTboy Babylon 5

[@thefurryinyourwalls]

While there's a practical limit to how thick you can make these, there's no real limit to how long they can be. Imagine it, a river valley that encircles a star

[@positiveanion4085]

With active supports there is no practical limit to how large you can build.

[@ASlickNamedPimpback]

@@positiveanion4085 even as big as ur mom?

[@MrNote-lz7lh]

​@ASlickNamedPimpback Yes, but unfortunately there's not enough mass in our universe.

[@TSERJI]

Just like the ancient kingdom of Egypt. A few miles wide, but a whole river (thousands of miles) long...

[@aprilpower1158]

In theory theres no limit to how wide it could be. This is pretty much the same principle as a ring world. And a ring world could be made around an entire star. Now imagine making an O'Neill Cylinder 10 times more massive than in this video, or 100 times, or 1000 times, or 10 000 times...

[@UteChewb]

You should forward a link to this to Denis Villeneuve. Word is that after Dune, he plans on his next movie (or the one after) being Arthur C. Clarke's Rama, which is an Oneill like cylinder.

[@jasonp.1195]

Lovely work. I grew up dreaming of living in those 1970's renders of O'Neill colonies and Stanford Rings, this does a great job of bringing back those dreams.

[@spaceboffin]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@HawkGTboy]

Sometimes I sit on the toilet and hold empty toilet paper roll tubes in my hands, spinning them slowly and pretending that they’re enormous O’Neill cylinders.

[@johndawson6057]

​@@HawkGTboydo you stick your tongue into them?

[@The_guy_on_the_internet]

I am 100% sure, if we become space faring we will live in these one day and they will become increasingly larger. People tell me it will be impossible for people to build things this size but I tell them who said anything about people building them, we build the machines that will build them.

[@billybobmonroe3166]

With Open AI and Google being on the verge of creating advanced artificial general intelligence and potentially the singularity, Im sure in the next decade or two we will atleast have the blueprints to create large space megastructures like so as AI quickly discovers every possible advancement in material science and engineering within our laws of physics.

[@Jay92master]

Yes we should build this O'Neil Colony

[@Jay92master]

Believe it

[@reptilionsarehere]

​@billybobmonroe3166 Call me a depressing person, but I don't think the future of spacefaring humanity will be anything like in the video. Especially if AI leads the way to ever more rapidly advancing technologies and discoveries. Whether you, me, or anybody else likes or approves of it or not, I think AI will try to shrink space craft and increase efficiency regardless of opinion. That means instead of something like a big and mostly hollow cylinder full of current comforts filling it... I personally see something more like humans being digitized, stuck on small probes filled with powerful hardware, and allowed to socialize in simulations while they travel star to star. Who knows, maybe we already are....

[@billybobmonroe3166]

@@reptilionsarehere I think your probably right, building something as large as an o'neil cylinder would be inefficient when compared to just stacking humans in a cargo bay and letting them live comfortably in virtual reality. In fact I think theres a significant chance humans don't venture far into space at all as we would begin to favor being omniscient gods in virtual worlds just as realistic as our own. My main point though is AI will begin to solve for every possibility in our given laws of physics. So if giant space mega structures are physically possible AI will figure out how it could be done whether they are every built or not.

[@beaconmarine6134]

Finally someone doing an animation of what it would look like on the ground in an O'Neal Sphere! Excellent!!! Don't forget the low gravity recreation center at the ends with curved pools.

[@toxicity6629]

I personally feel like it's a privilege to be able to view things that are possible in a huge amount of detail. Just 30 years ago this wouldn't even be possible to look at lol. Hopefully we build this and throw money out of the equation.

[@nexusoflife]

This is one of the most beautiful videos I have ever seen. I have loved the concept of O'Niell Cylinders for several years but this has to be the best rendition of them that I've come across. This video is truly a gift and a service to humanity as it truly shows a glimpse of what humanity is really capable of if we live up to our highest potential. Thank you for creating this.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks so much. You're very welcome. I love doing stuff like this!

[@johnmcpherson5137]

This makes me wonder ... if it might be easier to build advanced high-tech societies from scratch in Space, than to attempt to radically transform and uplift existing old-tech societies on Earth.

[@foshyurgason]

They both have their own complications, but yeah, it would be easier and more likely than not that we will first make a large space habitat before we find "the perfect exoplanet" or at least have the ability to go to one

[@mau7522]

This is basically the main conflict in Gundam

[@Strideo1]

I've wanted to play a video game set inside an O'Neill Cylinder type habitat for a while now. It would be so cool to be able to explore the interior and it would be cool if they simulated things like the coriolis effect and the way your apparent gravity would decrease as you gain elevation or head towards the center of rotation. So much potential!

[@lewismassie]

This was awesome. Been on an O'Neill binge recently so this came at just the right time

[@spaceboffin]

Pleased to be of service.

[@David_Kelly_SF]

Amazing. Makes me want to live there!

[@spaceboffin]

Ya know it! Thanks, David!

[@conradharcourt8263]

Superb animation. Interesting that the animator has revived the rule of the road that prevailed in parts of Italy before Mussolini: traffic is driving on the left in the town while on the bridge beyond the town it is on the right.

[@spaceboffin]

Yes it was a test to see who was paying attention. Or something. :-)

[@planets9102]

Love it! Just one small critisism, why are there cars in this thing? Given their size and relative flatness noting inside it would be more than an hour away by bike, add in some high speed trams for longer trips and your done. Why waste so much of your valuable space building such wide roads?

[@Hamdad]

Or buildings, when living/working space can be in the hull

[@gumbooter5562]

A series of videos showing the construction sequence would be great. Design, orbital construction infrastructure (planet side and in space), smelting, fabrication, assembly, powerplant, fit out etc.

[@spaceboffin]

I agree that would be cool. A bit too much for a single person to take on maybe.

[@elsamuraiguapo]

This seems more pratical, giving way more useable surface area, but i kind of grew accustomed to and like the look of the 3 rows of glass panes opposite the strips of land.

[@massimookissed1023]

But then you might get blasted with sunlight for 30 seconds every 3 minutes.

[@JWRay-xh9wl]

Thank you for the envisioning that you gifted us with this,because its completely amazing to say the least.

[@spaceboffin]

My pleasure!

[@EliteBlade46]

I want to live in one of these so badly, but I've surrendered to the fact that such a marvel of engineering will not happen sooner than my natural exit. A recreation in a VR game has been scratching that itch quite nicely though so not all is entirely glum.

[@arttoegemann]

Then take an interest in life extension. Lots of future there too.

[@HawkGTboy]

@@arttoegemannPeople have been trying for life extension for as long as we’ve understood what death was. I don’t think it’s possible, or even desirable. There a good novel about this called “The Post-Mortal” in which a drug is invented that halts your aging, and we follow the main character through the next 300 years of his life.

[@mrspeakman4021]

Absolutely awesome

[@sulljoh1]

Amazing. I was hoping to make a few simple renders of Hong Kong as an O'Neill cylinder and couldn't even work it out

[@simonhenderson7958]

Weyland Yutani easter egg was a nice touch

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks. There are others

[@DiveTheseClips]

The best visualisation of the megastructure I have ever seen. What's impressive that you somehow managed to make it feel nice and pleasant to live in. Most other visualisations tend to make them claustrophobic and uninviting :D

[@spaceboffin]

Haha, thanks!

[@EpicSpaceman]

Wonderful work! I was thinking about making an O’Neill cylinder for a future video but it will be hard to top this, so much effort and all worth it, well done!

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks, pal.

[@jeechun]

Excellent work! 👍👍

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks for the visit

[@joeljacob6731]

Please do more of the O Neil colonies (maybe a McKendree cylinder next?), I love these!

[@thomaseubank1503]

Great video man! With iron nitride magnets I think we might be closer to this than most people might think.

[@Necromonger69]

I would definitely volunteer to travel on it even knowing I would never step on the solid ground of a planet again.

[@bbartky]

Nice work, Mark! I really enjoyed this.👍 I also like your decision to have a solid hull and not use huge amounts of glass. Interestingly, this seems to be the direction that most recent space colony studies are going towards. Fraser Cain, who runs the great astronomy and space exploration website UniverseToday, also has a great channel here on KZbin. Recently, he interviewed a scientist whose proposal is to build a colony with a rubble-pile asteroid like Bennu. Basically, you would puta giant “bag” around it and the spin it to shape the rubble into a cylindrical shape. That cylindrical rubble pile would then be molded into the colony’s hull. A solid hull would also be much better at protecting the inhabitants from harmful cosmic radiation.

[@JimMZed]

A truly fascinating video. Well done!

[@spaceboffin]

Many thanks!

[@eliotbrown4506]

Very very nice. Mr. O'Neill would be intrigued at the interest and, no doubt, computer power needed to generate this remarkable work.

[@thirtysixjuniper8667]

stunning!

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks! Hopefully worth the effort it took!

[@creedyboy124]

Imagine O'Neil cylinder turned into spaceship that can transport hundreds of thousands of people and travel to Interstellar habitable Exoplanets and colonizing this place. Living inside Oneill cylinder as interstellar travel will not get bored without traditional small crampy spaceships.

[@brunocesarcerqueira2525]

I miss this kind of representation of a space station in movies and TV series. They always do the same things. It's not a lack of 3D technology or budget. It's just a lack of interest. To date, we've only seen anything close to this in Elysium and The Expanse, or excellent independent works like this

[@bloops9188]

At "only" 35 km long, 800 km/h vacuum trains don't really make sense. Modern transit technology would just do fine. Good work on the visuals though - the world needs more space habitat art! And even if a couple details don't make sense, it's good to have a futuristic sense of imagination. ^_^

[@max8286]

I agree, I would reduce flying objects because they´re not really necessary and a permanent danger for the outer structure. but very cool reproduction of ideas painted in magazines in the 70 and 80s

[@richardpoynton4026]

Interior surface are of 1000 Km2, roughly, I think. (386 miles square). - Double these figures to account for both cylinders. That’s room for MILLIONS of colonists, in my opinion. With all the advances in rocketry, AI, automation and robotics, all it would take would be a spark of investment to snowball this into reality. Forget about Mars, build a dozen of these colonies and then let people live on Mars if they want to….. but by then, why would you want to??? I do think that this colony would actually be inside a very large ‘hollowed out’ asteroid for further protection from space debris and radiation, though.

[@antred11]

Maybe the cities could be less car-centric? I refuse to believe that even when we can start from scratch we'd still design our cities to be car-centric hell holes.

[@spaceboffin]

Yes I tend to agree actually.

[@RIVAL89]

Stunning work! This is what I dream of when I think of the future, I hope we can make it there.

[@arttoegemann]

Impressive soundtrack too.

[@toweypat]

Wow! This is terrific.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks

[@Dagur_Johannsson]

Awesome video. Thank you for making it. ❤

[@spaceboffin]

My pleasure 😊

[@Galaf]

That was awesome! Please make more!

[@spaceboffin]

I try my best. But they take months!

[@Galaf]

@@spaceboffin I bet :) No rush if it's good quality!

[@potato_723]

This made me a bit emotional. Maybe because of how possible it could be, that one day humans could do this. Music and modelling was wonderfully done, you conveyed the scale very well

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! Yes, possible but I fear unlikely.

[@Ionee-q4f]

amazing work!

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@Robertc-lv4gs]

Amazing animation and modelling. Love the concepts! One suggestion for the future: do a little more post-processing to take it up to cinema level.

[@dilluminatilair]

need to see more of this

[@lollerfist6099]

Really well done!!! 🙂

[@HapNStance]

Fantastic. The streets looked wet. Could there be clouds and rain?

[@spaceboffin]

Yep

[@Cyberwar101]

We get minor weather systems forming even in large hangers on earth. These will have weather, though it would be mild and more consitent than on earth. Think sprinkling every night when it cools down.

[@jonahdav9589]

amazing work.

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@MichaelSkinner-e9j]

Imagine rotating the burj Khalifa like the graviton at the fair, and then Flipping it with huge flywheels in space like a cube-sat. While also accelerating it. You were dealing with compressive, sheer, and tensional forces. While accelerating it

[@musafawundu6718]

Just amazing! Just simply amazing? Can you do one for a Bishop Ring, a Halo Ring, and a McKendree Cylinder. I guess you will have to time lapse parts of those...

[@specialagentdustyponcho1065]

I don't think such a habitat would have personal cars as a main means of urban transport but I really like the animation, seeing the rising horizon is very interesting.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks. I agree about the cars actually

[@hectorrubio7141]

Amazing!!!!! Mate you are a genius artist.

[@spaceboffin]

I'm not, but I appreciate the sentiment!

[@CanyonWanderer]

Great production! I think I came across your experiments on Twitter (My Blender interest drives my feed there). The quality and amount of detail is amazing. Very very cool, thanks for sharing! I intrigues me how life in an O'Neill Colony would be like, but given the scale I think it would not even feel that weird. The music fits really well and I particularly like the wet patches in the evening scene, makes me wonder if the rain would be 'scheduled' in such a world.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks! If there is vegetation, you'd need water somehow...

[@mitch7w]

This is beautiful!

[@StaK_1980]

One point I think should be corrected is that those upper levels don't need to rotate. It is just enough of them to be up to produce less gravity. Rotating them actually goes against being designated for residents of lower gravity objects. And also imagine the wind conditions ... :P

[@peeperleviathan2839]

If you don’t rotate then they produce no gravity and it makes it much more complicated since they need to be mechanically separated from the rest of the structure

[@StaK_1980]

@@peeperleviathan2839 the whole barrel rotates... I meant fixing it to the already rotating spoke.

[@melissarainchild]

Did I see a "wink" somewhere around 3:18? A place called "Clarke central"? A wink to Rama, the book? Nice detail!!!

[@spaceboffin]

There are several Easter eggs actually...

[@StanleySchmengie]

I read numerous books back when O'Neill released his first book (The High Frontier; Human Colonies in Space, 1977 ) and became very interested in this subject. I honestly thought that by 2024 we would have at least built a toroid by now (Like in "2001, a Space Odyssey") and that I and many millions of others would be working and living in such a habitat. There are a lot of interesting phenomena that would be possible and required with these structures, as well any large rotating habitat. For instance, if you were to enter such a structure as pictured at the beginning of this video, getting "down" to the inner surface would likely cause nausea in most people, as the sideways acceleration coupled with the slowly increasing gravity effect would cause you to feel sick to your stomach. Therefore the elevators, if you will, would likely move fairly slowly, so that it might take an hour or more to move from the centerline to the livable surface. Another cool possibility discussed was how you could set up swimming pools in low gravity. You could build a curved floor pool and place it near the centerline so that the gravity was a fraction of the outer surface experienced, but still enough to keep the water in the pool and not have it form a sphere like we have seen in videos from the ISS. If the gravity was properly balanced, an accomplished swimmer could actually swim fast enough to get themselves out of the water! Human powered flight, with a pedal powered aircraft would be very easy if launched from near the centerline, and even from the surface if the gravity was less than "Earth Normal". You could easily control the climate in each of these cylinders as well. Have one that was perfectly temperate for the raising of crops. One that was always 72 degrees F and sunny! One that was cold and snowy for perpetual winter sports, etc. Humanity needs to do this. We need to move off this planet and let it heal. We have the technology (we've had it for over half a century) and we can develop those technologies we will need. Instead the human race as a whole spends several billions of dollars PER DAY on weapons, material and devices designed specifically to kill each other. We need to evolve so that humanity can thrive together, not continue to fight over scraps.

[@Turnidenwa]

Stunning

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! 😊

[@jibril2473]

This almost made me cry because I know if we put aside our differences in race, creed, culture and politics we as humans can certainly achieve the goal of space habitability.

[@spaceboffin]

You're right. But I fear we will never put these differences aside. I may have created this animation but I doubt very much one will ever be built - or if it is built, it will be by the elite for the elite. Business as usual. Sadly.

[@kylarloya]

Great work! I have been wanting to see a visualization like this forever, really love the groundwork you set for your interpretation of this megastructure. NOW SHOW ME YOUR DYSON SPHERE

[@spaceboffin]

Dyson sphere are just too big. Impossible to really get a sense of the scale. Thanks, glad you like it!

[@BdogFinal14]

The first O’Neill cylinders will be a bit small, like the one depicted in the movie Interstellar. As we become more advanced with asteroid mining, bioengineering and robotic construction, cylinders like this one will be possible. .

[@arx3516]

Imagine dropping one of these big boys on Sidney!

[@spaceboffin]

LOL! Why are you singling out Sydney?

[@agreenplasticwateringcan]

​@@spaceboffinPrincipality of Zeon's Operation British on January 3rd, 0079 Universal Century

[@carolynallisee2463]

I can think of one more issue that the builders of an O'Neill habitat will have to consider: our species circadian rhythm. I visited Iceland in early December last year, and got chatting to a very nice American lady who had settled there. During our conversation, she remarked that the biggest problem with an Icelandic summer was the fact it was difficult to sleep during the 'night' as even the thickest of blackout curtains didn't quite block out the midnight sun when pulled. Whilst the town she lived in didn't get twenty four hour daylight, it was far north enough not to get properly dark in summer, either, and even the Icelanders have issues getting to sleep at 'night' in Summer... The light beam running along the longitudinal axis would cause the same issue, and it can't be solved by just switching it off for twelve or so hours. I would assume that some kind of shield or shadow producing device would have to be installed between the light beam and the sides of the habitat to cast a strong enough shadow to give 'night-time'. It most likely would have to rotate in the opposite direction to the habitat to be most effective. If seasonal type light variations were required, the shield would have to have some kind of capacity to widen or narrow as needed, and if the architects and builders wanted different sections to experience different seasons at different times, the shielding would need to be separated into however many sections required, each with their own program for expansion and contraction...

[@LittleJohnFish]

I suspect most O'Neil cylinders would have multiple layers of maybe 30m deep and any light would be emitted by an advanced roof that could brighten and dim depending on the time of day. I don't think they will be big open spaces with normal buildings inside it that just doesn't seem very practical especially considering how many trillions it cost to build and maintain.

[@johndawson6057]

Eh humans can adapt, it's why we're apex creatures. People who were born there may never know the difference and those who do get affected can just chalk it up to their version of insomnia and may move if they need to.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks for your thoughts. Why can we not just modulate the intensity of the central beam?

[@fraser-uh2ln]

i cant lie i think that possibly in the future if this does come to happen it should be done in like villages so you know its more comfortable instead of a whole city plus it'd be cool to see just a village of space people walking in their little forests (i live in a village and hope to god this happens before im 40, im 13 rn)

[@neongelion-yt]

I wish for it so dearly

[@denvercolorado-olegmogilev576]

I have a retro-book, published at 1979, about O'Neil space colonies, buying somewhere online, it was a long time ago, and I'm not sure where I bought it!

[@matthiasvanrhijn280]

Absolut atemberaubendes Video! Herzlichen Dank :-)

[@spaceboffin]

Gern geschehen, mein Freund!

[@cobrakai388]

Only thing missing are 3 Zakus sneaking inside and White Base getting ready to be deploy.

[@wockohkawa7406]

great work! i cant stop watching

[@spaceboffin]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@qpwodkgh2010]

In no way do I want to insult the artist for his creation. I have so much input on something like this. -- The beautiful scenery you display here doesn't have to be the only level. There can be levels underneath all of that, and many of them. For example, level -20 is the outermost and has a 1.2g force while the very top level, the park can be a 0.7 or 0.6 g. Having higher g forces can have advantages like launching a satellite or a transport, giving a 10 m/s advantage for free. A park with 0.6g can be quite entertaining.

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks and I'm not insulted. Yes I'm aware there could be other levels. I just didn't show them!

[@cesarespinozaspain]

Some day,.....I and several generations will never see this but one day if we set aside out petty squabbles and selfish stupidity. Humanity as a whole could create such beautiful and wondrous things.... We as a whole could do so much better with our selves. I just hope we survive this century, and dont begin the long struggle again with sticks and stones...

[@spaceboffin]

I hear you and agree wholeheartedly

[@cobbler3376]

Terrific!

[@pgarlick]

Nice! Does it have wheelchair access?

[@spaceboffin]

Naturally

[@Godzillafanboy89]

​@@spaceboffinyou should do history of the solar system and do the narrator thing like you did with videos like the big splash theory and the dinosaur extinction one and if it's too much to do in one video you can just split it into parts

[@Godzillafanboy89]

​@@spaceboffinand also nice vid

[@spaceboffin]

Hey, thanks. I did have a voice-over for this but it just didn't fit. It lessens the impact and emotion of the music

[@spaceboffin]

... And a history of the Solar System is on my to do list.

[@IanCthrwd]

I wouldn’t use chemical rockets inside adding pollution within the cylinder. Trams and elevators should do the trick. Great work on this! Thank You!

[@spaceboffin]

Cheers

[@Cyberwar101]

Hydrogen-oxygen rockets would be fine, since it would only add water. Though why one would use rockets on the inside I would never know. You could make very simple airships using propellers if you bring them high up enough, which you can use those pylons for.

[@Contrarian-ol2bc]

Wow, what an amazing animation. Great music too!! Here's some more ideas if you want to use them... Why not build where the materials and resources are? Its much easier to transport the construction equipment than billions of tons of materials. Most asteroids are carbonaceous with lots of ices (including water), some metals for industry, buildings, and loads of materials for life, they are C-type. The S-type are stony, but still have significant metal deposits, more importantly they have the ingredients to make the billions of tons of basalt fiber needed for a good sized habitat. M-type or X-type are mostly made of metals with some rock as well. They are valuable for building materials. There are other types that are mixtures of the above. Most asteroids at or beyond the orbit of Jupiter have enormous amounts of water and other ices, lots of materials for industry, farming, and life. Probably half of all asteroids less than 6 miles wide (10km) are 'rubble piles' (floating piles of dust, rocks, boulders, etc) which means with almost zero gravity they are ridiculously easy to mine or dig into. One method proposed for hollowing them out is incredibly simple. You make a bag of some reasonably strong material (basalt fiber?) a few miles bigger than the target asteroid. Put it around a rubble pile asteroid, and slowly spin it up until the asteroid spreads out to the walls of the bag. It only needs to be spun up to probably a few percent more than the almost non-existent asteroid's gravity. Then you can just pick out the materials you want for processing, all inside a shielded environment, as the now hollow asteroid has spread out in a layer miles thick around a hollow space acting as shielding from radiation. The idea is that you build your O'Neill Cylinders within the shielded environment of a hollow asteroid. This is a perfect place to build them as its protected from random space rocks and radiation, and all the materials to be refined are right there for the picking. Later if you want you could move them out... or just leave them there and build more!

[@utrix_1121]

Beautiful Stuff

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@ebonaparte3853]

Amazing

[@spaceboffin]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@VitaNova83]

Text is not on the screen for long enough to read.

[@michaelo393]

Great work, nice use of the Utopia building set. Noticed some tree instancing issues near the water/beach lines. Loved the depth of feel and scale of your project. definitely subscribing. 😲

[@spaceboffin]

Thanks. Yes, heavy use of Utopia but I modified them a lot for the final scene.

[@madvulcan8964]

“Can we humans overcome our petty squabbles” as if ancient ideological, philosophical and theological differences to existence, life and how to live are nothing but a trivial subjects compared to the new same old designed smart phone to be obsolescence by next year. An O’Neil space colony at Lagrange point L1 would be nice. So is a cure to wounds no medicine can touch and no product can fix.

[@MsNavimor]

i`ll hope it will be

[@alexinaboxx]

Is this 8km in diameter x 32km long (5mi x 20mi)?

[@spaceboffin]

9 x 35 km

[@ventusfox]

This colony, Sweetwater, was built by patching together a closed type to an open type and is therefore, very unstable. It was made hastily in order to accommodate those refugees, who had survived the past space wars. This was the only measure taken by the Earth Federation government. They concluded that everything was fine as long as they made a container to stick the refugees in. They remained on Earth and refused to share the planet. My father, Zeon Deikun, had made a request to Earth for autonomy for all space immigrants known as 'spacenoids', but he was assassinated by the Zabi family. The Zabis had called themselves the Principality of Zeon and it launched a war of independence against the Earth. You know how it was to end, with the Zabis losing the war, which sealed their fate. But the Earth's government had grown arrogant. The Federation forces had become corrupt from within, giving birth to rogue Federation movements like the Titans and resulting in the brazen activities of Haman, who had falsely claimed to be a protector of the Zabi family. This history has made us all refugees! What is our future reflecting on this tragic history? I firmly believe mankind must do everything to prevent war from rising up again. This is the true purpose behind our operation to drop Axis onto Earth. To change history, hence we will discipline the people who continue to live on Earth and eliminate the source of any wars in Earth's sphere! Everyone! So that we may forge our own path and establish a government for the refugees. I ask you, lend me your great strength for just a little while longer! When we've succeeded, I will then be able to join my father, Zeon!

[@Gerhard_Schroeder]

Great!

[@tgkhfgkr9729]

I imagine blimps and other lighter than air craft to be quite unstable in this environment because of significant gravity changes with changing altitudes.

[@prowlus]

Wonder how it drops?

[@Jay92master]

They need to focus on this project

[@MichaelSkinner-e9j]

You could actually have hover cars that never touch the ground in an o Neil cylinder and it would take less power!

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

These will be fantastically expensive to build, materially and time-wise. Every cubic metre will be pricey. Thus there won’t be unproductive open spaces or open volumes. We’ll start with unimaginative capsules like the ones currently envisioned for the ISS-replacements. As that form-factor gets entrenched steadily larger agglomerations of the same unit will come on-line. Stanford Toruses.. stack them up until they resemble O’Neill cylinders. There will be habitation zones, those far enough away from the axis for 1 G living. Closer to the axis will be food production with the hope that plants will be okay with less gravity. Small habitation sections nearer still for Mars and Moon gravity. Surrounding the axis will be surplus materials storage. Backup oxygen, nitrogen, minerals, water, preserved food, general stuff that are oblivious to the gravity they’re stored at. It will all be spinning inside a protective, non-spinning shell. The shell will be dominated by rock and water jacket layers, protection against collision and radiation. The outside will be studded by photovoltaics, rockets, communication antennas and radiators. The water jacket will serve simultaneous functions. The most obvious: radiation shielding. A few metres thick will protect the interior against cosmic rays. Also backup water supply in the very unlikely failure of water recycling systems. Lastly: thermal control. Kept at a steady 18 degrees Celsius it will steady the cylinder through infrared exchange. The jacket in turn will be thermally regulated with solar collectors and radiators on the outside of the shell. A decent sized cylinder, say 30 km long, 9 km diameter could accommodate hundreds of millions completely self-sufficiently. A similar capacity as a city-building 30km by 30km by 30 stories tall.

[@Cyberwar101]

The open space isnt really wasteful, as it can be used for a natural eater cycle. Also it isnt really all that materially expensive. Your average nickle-iron asteroid has plenty of material to build several of them. When you compare that to trying to terraform a planet, which is what is traditionally considered, the cost is trivial, even for equivalent surface area. Now, i agree that what you suggested would be more efficient. And doubtlessly that setup would be more common; however consider that it is also not the most efficient. If you want to talk about cheap and efficient, microgravity habitats are where it is at. Humans dont do well in microgravity, however the vast majority of the problems associated with microgravity are only problems if you want to head back to Earth. If you dont, most of the rest could be addressed. Thus anyone who can manage to adapt to living in microgravity full-time has a huge advantage. You dig into just about any asteroid, cook out some oxygen from the rock, and make sure its sealed, then just add more rooms and hallways as needed. Most of this could be done with tools no more advanced than what your average mechanic has on earth, and opens up the possibility of even single family habitats. There are some problems; we arent sure humans are fertile in microgravity or not, and bone density is a problem that can cause problems for kidneys. If some kind of gene therapy or medication could solve those issues, then I would expect that microgravity habitats would become the norm.

[@JFrazer4303]

Many details about it are fictional and somewhat fantastical, but the general idea is 100% realistic. It obviously wouldn't be "us" from down here, using tiny rockets based on WW2 long range artillery, building habitats for millions of people. The early first generation habs like the "Stanford Torus" or O'Neill "Island One" 800 meter sphere are ours within 30 years (anytime since the '70s) with no new inventions needed. No fantasy hand-waving "unobtainium" materials or sentient AI nanotech self-assemblers needed. Cost would be like many other large infrastructure or industrial developments down here. Any who disagree are invited to show their professional qualifications in mining, construction, and astronautical engineering and where they've been published under peer-review showing that the '70s NASA Ames space settlement studies were wrong. They found that the largest pressure vessels which we could build with known engineering were `30km diameter. Concrete and steel. With titanium (which isn't particularly rare up there, maybe twice that. Maybe 80 years after the first infrastructure and small habitats are done, there might be desire to make something so huge. By then, IDK what we'll be using for "cost" or "expense", because there is practically literally endless supply of energy and raw materials and things like previously rare or precious metals, in flying mountains, literally raining down on us as we sit. Very many much richer than the Moon, and very much easier to get to and get materials from. Habitats cannot be a long body rotating around its long axis, because that's inherently unstable, wanting to wobble and tumble and go end over end. Yes you can use various means to overcome this, but a smart engineer doesn't design in defiance of the physical laws and then apply complexity to overcome the design flaws. See the "Kalpana" space habitat, for the optimum: maybe half or 2/3 the diameter in length. With attention to making the rim massive, like a shallow drum or Torus. The aerospace vehicles inside it and the "gravity" defying architecture are as fanciful as is the supposed fusion power supply and the light emitter in the center. The O'Neill and NASA Ames designs planned for realistic warm (filtered) sunlight at "ground level", anywhere in the Solar system and out into the Oort cloud.

[@BumpTune8462]

Respectfully, the amount of collaboration and effort required for mankind to ever achieve this instantly makes it impossible. You would need all the world’s governments working on this. And with countries like india not even able to have clean streets and bathrooms, we are never going to do this.

[@spaceboffin]

No argument from me there! Nice dream though.

[@Landrew0]

We could build cities inside ice caps today. Ask yourself why we aren't doing that.

[@Hamdad]

Very beautiful, but I think based on contemporary thinking in the way Jules Verne's idea of an airship was a nautical ship suspended from a gas bag. In O'Neill cylinders, interior natural space is at a premium. Why clutter it up with buildings when you control the climate anyway? The hull can be many decks thick. You could put all your living and working space in the hull, to conserve natural space on the "surface". If nothing else, why waste internal surface area on roads for cars, or elevated trains, when there can be "underground" subway lines traversing the full length of the tube at intervals around its diameter? These colonies aren't so large that all transport needs couldn't be met without personal vehicles. Something like a parking structure would be an obscenely costly waste of space in such a space constrained setting, unless it's also in the hull. Even then, are roads also subterranean? Cars just don't make a lot of sense here. I also wonder at spacecraft flying around the interior. I understand the center is at microgravity, but one swoops close to the surface. Electric aircraft, sure, ok. But nuclear or chemical rocket exhaust, inside the recirculated atmosphere? Are we to believe antigravity exists by this point, too? If so, what need is there of spin gravity? Not knocking the animation, it's spectacular, just questioning whether we're looking at 25th century structures through 21st century eyes and making some wrong assumptions as a consequence. Incidentally, if ever you wish to visit such a cylinder in VR, there's a to-scale one with working spin gravity in VRChat called Island-4 by the author A_ASAGIRI: vrclist.com/world/7780

[@spaceboffin]

I agreed that transport can go underground. But housing? Would YOU want to live in a bunker?

[@Hamdad]

@@spaceboffin If I can step outside into nature any time I want, and my floor window looks out into space

[@jeronimodiaz5623]

Like the space colonies in seen in GUNDAM, like Side 7.

[@thomaskalbfus2005]

It would get hot near that florescent tube in the center.

[@fr31155]

This looks so amazing! I wonder what it would feel like to walk around inside. Would the artificial gravity really feel identical to earth? Also, in this design, it would be completely enclosed with no natural sunlight enter the habitat?

[@spaceboffin]

I imagine it would feel identical to real gravity. No sunlight in my version, no, but the original design had half of the surface made of glass, through which sunlight was directed via mirrors. Seems like a waste of surface space to me.

[@uzay2022]

Echt super gemacht Ich wünschte darin zu leben zu können 👍🙋‍♂️

[@spaceboffin]

As do i