Astronomy / Space NASAs 70s visions of spacestations

Anders Lerche

Anders Lerche
With the upcoming Sci-fi film Elysium ( which looks very cool in my book), a couple of film sites out there have dug up these old illustrations of how NASA envisioned life in a giant rotating space station, complete with centrifugal gravity, farms, factories and happy colonists milling about. It's a fascinating concept and one that I hope we will be able to achieve some day in the future too.
I believe that Syd Mead also made some renderings of this subject, but these are almost as beautiful, painted and drawn like they used to do it back then.

http://www.space.com/22179-nasa-space-colony-vision-photos.html?cmpid=514648

space-colony-art-13.jpg
 

el_tel

el_tel
Gelbrock said:
I love it.... birds flying around in it would get very confused...

Like a big generation ship.
Click to expand...

What would actually happen if you deposited say, a pigeon, on the ground in one of those space stations and it tried to take off?
 

DWorth

D
Oh, I remember these! When I was a kid my parents bought me a WH Smiths science encyclopedia that had a section at the back about the future of space travel... very little of which happened, alas. I was absolutely enraptured by what I thought we'd be experiencing now.

Living in the future is rubbish! I want holidays in space and flying cars like they promised!
 
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Thargon

Thargon
Yes a classic view of an artistic inside - Carl Sagan esque.

There's also the rotating wheel ones of the Classic Kubrik fame. Well we've moved on a little bit - space balloon hotels is one I've read about. Strange but strange.
 

Thargon

Thargon
Redevous with Rama was an excellent read. I enjoyed it :) Also in a similar vein is "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds (cool guy btw, I've met him).
 

jan

jan
Anders Lerche said:
With the upcoming Sci-fi film Elysium ( which looks very cool in my book), a couple of film sites out there have dug up these old illustrations of how NASA envisioned life in a giant rotating space station, complete with centrifugal gravity, farms, factories and happy colonists milling about. It's a fascinating concept and one that I hope we will be able to achieve some day in the future too.
I believe that Syd Mead also made some renderings of this subject, but these are almost as beautiful, painted and drawn like they used to do it back then.

http://www.space.com/22179-nasa-space-colony-vision-photos.html?cmpid=514648

space-colony-art-13.jpg
Click to expand...

Yesterday i did see that movie and i was puzzled since the inside of the wheel there was no walls, is this even possible? Or have Hollywood yet again stretched the truth and laws of the universe :rolleyes:
 

Thargon

Thargon
An interesting engineering puzzle. I guess depends on the rotation speed of the habitat and the diameter. I suspect the centripetal force on the cylinder would be pretty high to sustain a 1g gravity enviroment, and the thickness of the hull of the cylinder would govern if it was feasible. I expect someone on the internet has already done these calculations (a civil engineer perhaps?).
 

Razorwire

Razorwire
Cetripetal acceleration would be 1G... Totally possible with glass and steel.

Look up O'Neil's stuff on rotating habitats from the early 70's, he and his physics classes did the calculations. They showed that even large habitats were possible with glass and steel.
 
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Josh Atack

Former Frontier Employee
Frontier
Hey folks, I have a big folder of these nasa paintings, done by don davis and others, I used them a lot to jump start my imagination at the beginning of the kickstarter campaign, they were designed by engineers and are perfectly feasible.

More space habitats have been outlined, and this is a great resource: http://www.nss.org/settlement/space/

Anders Lerche Syd Mead has also been working on Elysium as a set designer, he is of course a house hold name in concept art circles, having been so involved in aliens and blade runner and tron etc.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
I'm a fan of the O'Neil cylinders. Cos Babylon 5 was a small one. (Classic is about 20 miles, B5 was 'five miles long and all alone in the night' cept for the quarter of a million humans and aliens who called it a home away from home.
 

Anders Lerche

Anders Lerche
Josh Atack said:
Hey folks, I have a big folder of these nasa paintings, done by don davis and others, I used them a lot to jump start my imagination at the beginning of the kickstarter campaign, they were designed by engineers and are perfectly feasible.

More space habitats have been outlined, and this is a great resource: http://www.nss.org/settlement/space/

Anders Lerche Syd Mead has also been working on Elysium as a set designer, he is of course a house hold name in concept art circles, having been so involved in aliens and blade runner and tron etc.
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That's awesome Josh. Oh, I know about Syd. I follow his output closely and I have lots of stuff with him and his art here at home. He is by far my favorite Sci-Fi designer. Him, Ron Cobb and Chris Foss of course.
 
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Thargon

Thargon
Razorwire said:
Cetripetal acceleration would be 1G... Totally possible with glass and steel.

Look up O'Neil's stuff on rotating habitats from the early 70's, he and his physics classes did the calculations. They showed that even large habitats were possible with glass and steel.
Click to expand...

Possible, but to move steel and glass up to orbit to build the thing... a totally different proposition. Just think about the ISS, how long that took.
 

Josh Atack

Former Frontier Employee
Frontier
Thargon said:
Possible, but to move steel and glass up to orbit to build the thing... a totally different proposition. Just think about the ISS, how long that took.
Click to expand...

Well the plans were to have a mass driver on the moon, sending them to L2, and then to be transported to L5. As well as asteroid mining. Which doesn't make the thing a walk in the park, but is an interesting plan.
 
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