#o'neill cylinder

[humanoidhistory]

Rick Guidice, 1974.

(MoMA)

[theswampharpy]

When you read the Colonization of Space paper by Gerard O'Neill and it suddenly all makes sense

[bluedelliquanti]

I have a new story in an anthology whose crowdfund starts today: Iron Circus Comics’ Failure to Launch!

Failure to Launch is a light-hearted, educational tour of the (so far!) unrealized technological and societal advances promised in years past, but which never came to be. What could have been, but wasn't. It tells the tales of space utopias, incredible inventions, societal revolutions, robot pets, and even predictions of planet-wide Armageddon!

My entry is inspired by one of my favorite topics: the O’Neill cylinder, the space colony design that never was. Back the book by March 9 and you’ll have your chance to read it!

[starfall333]

The capital city of New Babel's 1st ring.

[no7er]

Loop Town Dawn Digital artwork by me, 2022

[positron2399]

The Kehhar (Whispers in the Stars)

A now outdated design of a species of my superhero "manga" I working on, don't get ur hopes up of reading it in the next few months though, I doubt I'll ever finish it

Feedback and Critique welcome (^_^)

[teachersource]

Gerard K. O'Neill was born on February 6, 1927. An American physicist and space activist, as a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s, he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O’Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. His award-winning book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space inspired a generation of space exploration advocates.

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Rendezvous with Rama!

“One of my earliest Space Colony paintings was based on the giant ‘Model 3’ cylindrical habitats envisioned by Gerard O'Neill. I imagined the clouds forming at an ‘altitude’ around the rotation axis.” ~artist Don Davis

[fragments-of-time-and-life]

[alphamecha-mkii]

Space Colony by Mitsuki Nakamura

[honouredsnakeprincess]

There are models for the proposed terraforming of Mars which involve the use of lichens and similar organisms to transform the soil and atmosphere. There's something fascinating about entire strains of living things reproducing and dying for the sake of humanity's own propagation. This is the reduction of entire species of life to a sort of instrumentalism, and there is a horror to that.

There is a (primarily but not exclusively american) cultural cohort who I will call for the purposes of this list the astro-futurists. They are strong proponents of space colonization, frequently for the purposes of building humanity's resilience against supposed "x-risks", such as asteroid strikes or sapient computers that we are unable to control. Even if Earth dies, humanity will live on on martian soil and around the stars of Alpha Centauri!

There is a certain type of high school 'nihilist' who has no philosophical groundings for his works, but has a primitive understanding of Darwinism, and so concludes that the purpose of all life is to reproduce. In the most base sense, he is correct; all extant life is shaped by the need to pass on its genetic material. Most people would say this is reductive, however, and they are correct too.

The lichen would not be the first thing humanity has bent to specific purposes like that. Billions of chickens are kept in factory farms for the sake of meat and egg production, and so their lives are similarly reduced to a singular purpose in the service of humanity. In the reductive eyes of the high schooler, who views procreation as the highest virtue of life, humanity has done these chickens a great favour! While disease and predators might threaten populations of junglefowl in the wild, the structure of the farm protects the chickens from predators, and judicious cullings ensure that some part of the population will always be resilient against disease. Even as humanity kills the chickens for their meat, we ensure that there will always be another chicken.

The chicken is, therefore, the immortal junglefowl. Bar a vast reorganization of human civilization, the domestic chicken will last as long as humanity does. The genes which distinguish them from their wild relatives will propagate forever, just as the lichens humanity plants in the martian soil will have a monopoly on that soil, free of the rival strains of lichen which populate the earth. No one, however, looks at a factory farm and says "How charitable of humanity to make these birds immortal!" Why is this?

The most existentially concerned of the astro-futurists might consider the cultural and social development of space travel, like their more idealistic peers, but ultimately their prerogative is the survival of humanity against any threat which might render Earth uninhabitable. Some have criticized these efforts as a new form of colonialism to further enrich the global north, and note that the countries most capable of creating space colonies are those mostly strongly integrated into the capitalist system. The first flag on Mars will in all likelihood be that of the United States, or that of whichever ascendant capitalist power who succeeds them.

There are two problems with the existential programme of the astro-futurists, beyond the ways in which it unduly advantages the global north. The first is that Mars, and indeed much of space, is a terrible home for humans. Those who live there will suffer from radiation, and poisonous dust, and will likely reside in cramped underground dwellings. The lower gravity will cause their bones and flesh to atrophy, and should they have children on Mars, there is a good chance their young will never return to the home of their parents, lest Earth's gravity crush their feeble lungs and hearts. These lives will be bold and novel, entirely distinct from those of all humans before them, but they may not be enviable.

The second problem is that, even assuming that Mars somehow becomes wholly self-sufficient of Earth, in the event that Earth is destroyed, Mars will not save humanity. A narrow slice of the cultures of the global north will be salvaged by the Martians, perhaps. English will still be spoken, but the hundreds of languages of Africa will likely perish. Recorded music will survive, but the little regional songs no one thought to record will not. This is the survival of humans, not of humanity.

The notion of 'memes' is sometimes attributed to Richard Dawkins, a man with a complicated legacy not worth discussing. I have heard rumour that the idea originates from somewhere else, however. If one takes the traditional formation of memes to be true, then astro-futurism can be considered a sort of meme or collection there, as can its more existentially-concerned strains. If we settle Mars to survive the loss of Earth, then perhaps humanity will die and this meme will continue to propagate. What remains will become another example of the instrumentalization of life, with a vast complexity of experiences reduced, ultimately, to the ability to serve the propagation of others.

[radiocmyk]

From Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman Blade: Orbital Ring Dakkai Sakusen for PC-98 (1994)

[owenthetokencishet]

"With rail service to NEOM" Is code for "completely impractical and unachievable concept that only serves as a futile attempt to restore public image"

[memories-of-ancients]

A while ago I finally watched the movie Interstellar and I got some problems with it. First of all the plot has some problems. Earth is dying due to a crop blight and soil degradation. It's only a matter of time before humanity dies out due to crop failures and food shortages. So the plan is to find a new planet to live on at the other end of a wormhole and resettle there. The movie ends with humanity living on a big O'Neill cylinder flying through space to colonize the new planet. So wait, by that time in the future humanity has the ability to engineer, build, and launch into space a bigass O'Neill cylinder but they can't genetically engineer crops that are blight resistant and do soil reclamation and revitalization programs? Like, flying humanity through a wormhole in a bigass O'Neill cylinder is the simpler solution?

And bruh you can't just fly into a giant black hole. Don't even worry about sphagettification because you would be crushed like a bug long before you came close to the event horizon of a black hole. Which is also something you wouldn't have to worry about because you would be burnt to a crisp before you came close to being squashed like a bug. Which is also something you wouldn't have to worry about because you would die of gamma radiation poisoning before you came close to being burnt to a crisp and squashed like a bug. Love isn't a mystical force that is gonna save you from the gravitational effects of a block hole.

[publicdomainreview]

Gerard K O'Neill design from the 1970s for a space station colony — 2 cylinders rotate in opposite directions to provide artificial gravity and keep the station aimed at the sun. A similar colony appears at the end of Interstellar (2014). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s

[turing-complete-eukaryote]

Me when i move to space

Guy whose utility function is proportional to angular momentum