Island One - Settlements in Space

[unclefixer]

I can imagine, going to work one"morning" and be in the zero g section, finish my shift and go to my home with 1 earth g and live. This station could be big enough to have rivers and green grass. It would not be earth, but by the time its built earth may be so polluted and messed up, that anyone who can leave, will!

[sam46952]

gundam ;D

[SpazzyMcGee1337]

What he said.

[simaaiwen]

You have echoed my hopes, dreams, aspirations and goals! You have echoed in this video the yearnings og my very soul! See you at L1.

[thregar]

@simaaiwen thanks :) please feel free to link to the video to show others..

[antred11]

@nilbud Yeah, I can see that explaining things is asking a bit too much from someone like you.

[tomyferland1234]

So What are we waiting for?

[cabbievonbump]

@tomyferland1234 Politically? Well, you do know what the opposite of "Progress" is, right? :-)

[adrastea99]

Rotating space stations are incredibly difficult to build, for two reasons

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Rotating cylinders are unstable and start bending and warping if they're longer than their width, thus the only option is some form of rotating wheel

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But such wheels also require a great deal of control necessitating the need for a central control section, spokes and so on, all of which adds to complexity

Such complexity will not function without constant maintenance, and leads easily to catastrophic failure

[SailorBarsoom]

@adrastea99

Two cylinders can be placed side by side, linked with bearings, and rotated in opposite directions.

A sphere isn't longer than its width.

Smaller habitats, at least, need a massive radiation shield, and this can be counter-rotated (instead of a twin of the habitat being counter-rotated).

Instead of a wheel, should that turn out to be undesirable for some reason, you could instead have a disk.

[adrastea99]

@SailorBarsoom

Too many moving parts, you would have to stop all the rotating parts in order to fix just one bearing, or you would have a failure

A sphere is good, but rotating it provides uneven gravity

A disk is better, but it also provides uneven gravity

Both of these are much more expensive to produce than wheel stations

[SailorBarsoom]

@adrastea99

They could *probably* design it so that the failure of any one bearing wouldn't cause a failure, and so that bearings and other parts could be repaired in motion. I emphasize "probably" because I'm not sure. It would be important to see if this could be done before settling on a design.

As long as the gravity is right in a big enough part, it's OK for other parts to have less. The question is how big is big enough, and would the sphere provide it.

durned character limit

[SailorBarsoom]

The disk would use more materials in the construction of the pressure hull, more materials in the shield, and more in the gasses to make up the atmosphere. But a disk is basically a wheel with side walls that go all the way to the center. Or it could be thought of as a very short cylinder.

I rather like the wheel, though, and would be happy to live on one.

[GreatExterminator]

O'Neil had some great ideas. I'd love to see them come to pass. Maybe one of the commercial space companies can make it happen.

[jrice73]

As a fan of Mobile Suit Gundam, I really appreciate this video. O'Neill's "High Frontier" is an integral part of Gundam's Universal Century mythology. Thank you.

[thregar]

@jrice73 I didn't know that.. thanks for the message :) will be checking that out.

[Salvysahagun]

@thregar

You look into it!

its hella good!!

[jag9998]

Personally, I would rather build these around the asteriod belt. I especially don't like the Lagrange points because gravity is naturally pulling out from them, making constant small adjustments (maybe not so small for a bernal sphere) necessary.

[crassirus]

Much shared internet babble has been exchanged over this subject at Rocketpunk Manifesto. The big conclusion is an L point might actually not be the best decision, better to establish an Earth-Moon joint orbit, something like a free-return trajectory. Instant space party bus, perfect for moving cargo and passengers over larger increments of time.

Lunar colonization, at least any time as soon as that, is unlikely, though. Very expensive Sahara desert with HE3.

[nilbud]

The population of the Earth increases by 217,000 people every day and rising. Whatever pseudopod Humanity extends into space will not diminish the home world population a jot.

[thregar]

@nilbud that's not really what's meant by tackling overpopulation, at least in the short term.. its more about putting the resources to be found in space, like the power of the sun, at the disposal of the human population to increase their quality of life rather than just denuding the Earth's resources.

[antred11]

@nilbud Not initially, no. But once the foundation has been laid, the number and size of colonies in space would begin to grow exponentially, at which point space colonization really *would* make a difference regarding Earth's overpopulation.

[nilbud]

@antred11 That is not true.

[antred11]

@nilbud "That is not true."

Oh well, that convinces me.

[illustriouschin]

Hundreds of years from now this time will be known as the Interplanetary Dark Ages or something to that effect. "Oh what would things be like now if the Apollo and Mars programs were not cancelled in the 1970's? Those extra 250 years of progress sure would have been nice!"

[Joe35983]

@illustriouschin agreed

[The4Experience]

It is a pity that these habitats won't be built before about 2100 :(

[JasonDamisch]

Nope, you have it backwards. In order to solve our environmental and overpopulation problems, we should move into outer space and then utilize the resources out there. Read O'Neil.

[ShwangShwing]

giant rotating space habitats would be so expensive.

[BillyCauseyjr]

I see Island 3 being the most viable of the O'neil colonies, but also the most expensive.

[videowilliams]

Now there's a dream worth striving for! But also a hugely expensive one- I think we'll have to get our overpopulation and environmental issues under control first, to have the luxury of building these massive outposts. Still, as human history shows, nothing's impossible...

[thregar]

thanks for your kind words!

[baillou2]

@videowilliams I always bridle at such comments. If we get our environmental issues under control first, well, it'll never happen.

LEAP FIRST!!

[GeneralBerger]

I am hoping to get my degree in aerospace, nuclear, or bio engineering; to make space colonization a reality

[thregar]

good luck with it all!

[mehboyable]

cool video

[damproductions]

cool!

[thedukeofantioch]

it would be so nice to live there.

[chadlupkes]

Re: Eclipse. they wouldn't have much of an effect.  There would be enough battery power collected and stored to allow the station to survive the few minutes that the sun would be in shadow.

[Firithfenion]

Awesome video. This might be the future of mankind.

[SailorBarsoom]

Nice video. I'd sure like to see this idea introduced into television. Cop shows in space. Family sitcoms in space. Spies in space. Rough tough asteroid miners. Something. Just get the idea out there.

[thedukeofantioch]

there was one series on british tv about policemen in space

[SailorBarsoom]

That's right. _Starcops_

I forgot about it. I've only seen bits and pieces of it, on PBS. Seemed to be pretty much hard SF, which is what we need. Well, we need moar of it.

There is also an anime called _Planetes_ which is about a team of space debris workers. Seems to be hard SF, and not a giant robot in sight (I'm looking at you, _Gundam Mobile Suit_).

[thedukeofantioch]

i think i saw abit of planetaries once.this documentary presents the space colonies as abit iydllic but i dont think they will be.there will be piracy,internal corruption etr.the colonies would only work socially if they are all recruited from a unitied group,so they would be all kibbutzim,,democrats,catholic,­moslem etr.

[BillyCauseyjr]

@SailorBarsoom yup, after these are built... it wouldn't suprise me to see MS.06 Zaku's pop up.

[SailorBarsoom]

Thanks to MSG, everybody in Japan over the age of twenty or so is at least passingly familiar with the idea of O'Neil habitats.

Somebody put Jackie Chan on the weightless airplane before he dies or retires.

[Tekk711]

Nice Video.

[HarryHayfield]

I can see one major downside to this. Namely, what effect will eclipses have on the station?

[SailorBarsoom]

It would important to locate the habitat somewhere that would not experience eclipses very often. It would also be important to keep track of when the rare eclipse was due, so that you could be prepared for it.

[mayhem8166]

In the libration points L4 and L5 there would possibly be an eclipse about twice as often as a earth moon eclipse, they could last for up to a maximum of 2 hours, not a problem at all, in fact it would be quite an event.

Please bear in mind on Earth we have an eclipse every day and it lasts for about 12 hours!

[SailorBarsoom]

Hey that's true! We call it "night."

Which is one of the main problems with any solar power plan based on the surface of the Earth (or the Moon, or Mars, or...). It's dark half the time!