25 thoughts on “Asimov And O’Neill”

  1. I’ve never understood why the windows have always been depicted as so large, wouldn’t it make more sense to focus the sunlight through narrow slits of windows, nearly doubling the land area?

    1. I was wondering if seeing something spin past the windows so fast make people sick. They spoke about the effects of centripetal force but didn’t mention anything about the visual cues that cause discomfort.

      1. Maybe I should get out the 3D rendering software and produce a movie of what it looks like viewing out those windows.

  2. Never understood the drawings with multiple external mirrors and side windows on the exterior. Must be artistic license. The max-G ‘real estate’ should be too valuable to waste on empty expanses of glass.

    1. So have a big reflector behind the colony and reflect light through the end back along the core where other reflectors direct the light down to the surface?

      It just occurred to me that maybe the big windows act as radiators, the interior of the colony would get hot pretty quickly without some form of getting heat back out into space.

  3. Space colonies as depicted make little sense to me. All that air way above everyone’s heads is wasted volume. It makes more sense to have low ceilings, and to divide things into separate sealed volumes. And sunlight? Use LEDs; there’s less waste heat.

    1. That vast volume of air provides a reserve if the colony gets a modest leak. The leak still needs to be patched, but it isn’t a panic situation.
      There’s also psychological factors with large spaces vs. small.

      1. Structural mass will be proportional to contained volume, so you get a lot more floor space if the “ceiling” isn’t so high. It’s like no one builds a skyscraper with 200 foot ceilings.

        The way to deal with leaks is to break the living area down into sections that can be sealed from one another.

        1. Paul, O’Neill colonies were about creating idyllic living space. Space is quite big and the resources available huge, so there’s no limit on the possible number of colonies. Your philosophy that there’s a need to pack as much living space and people into each wasn’t what it was about.

          Your comments reminded me of this book:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2430_A.D.

          1. Regardless of the resources available, you get more living space if you have low ceilings than if you have high ones. Why produce less for more?

            Space colonies, like everything else, will be controlled by laws of economics. I’m sure there will be some frivolously designed colonies that sacrifice economics for some
            notion of aesthetics, but they will be rare.

          2. Space colonies, like everything else, will be controlled by laws of economics.

            The number of people living off Earth are a testament to that truth.

          3. Paul D. specifically which laws of economics do you see as relevant?
            When it comes to quality of housing and environment it’s my observation that people will buy the best quality that they can afford, if O’Neill colonies are affordable for the wealthy space colonizers of the future and that layout is seen as delivering a better quality of home and environment than your or other alternatives, the O’Neill colony style is what they will choose.

        2. It depends on the main industry of a space colony. Form follows function.

          One located at L4 might be primarily a vacation destination. I think people would pay big money to be able to fly with their own arm power, and resupply is close.

          A colony way out orbiting Ceres might be mostly a transportation and logistics hub, and probably working closely with mining operations on the surface. That colony might follow your idea more closely.

        3. Structural mass will be roughly proportional to volume^2/3, assuming constant proportions. Cost of high ceiling in a long cylinder isn’t bad at all.

          1. I think unless the space habitat is very large, forces on the walls will be dominated by air pressure loads. The mass to resist these will be proportional to volume.

          2. I will add that the mass efficiency of a rotating habitat declines the larger you make it. That’s because the structure mass to supply a given mass of contents with centripetal acceleration goes as v^2, where v is the linear speed of a point on the shell of the colony. At a given acceleration a, v = sqrt(a r), so the mass efficiency (structural mass needed per unit total mass) goes as 1/r. When r is small enough this structural mass is dominated by that needed to resist pressure loads and this breaks down.

          3. Another comment on mass efficiency of space colonies:

            If there is an upper bound to omega (the rotational rate of the structure in radians/s) due to human tolerability, and if we just consider the structural mass needed to counter rotational loads, then the mass efficiency of thje space colony goes as one over the square of the acceleration provided. There is therefore a strong economic argument to make the acceleration as low as possible, while still supplying enough to maintain human health.

    2. It depends on whether your design goal is to support as many people as possible with minimal structure, or to recreate the most pleasant living environments available here on Earth. O’Neill’s goals were the latter.

  4. The number of people living off Earth are a testament to that truth.

    The economic viability of a product is often determined by government policies and technology.

    1. The economic viability of a product is often determined by government policies and technology.

      And people often shift the blame to scapegoats when their dreams fail to become reality.

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