Settling the Solar System This Century

Settling the Solar System This Century

by Andy Nimmo, President of the Space Settlers Society

The concepts of space stations and habitats are common in modern culture. While space stations have become reality, there are as yet no true space habitats. Writers, filmmakers, and other artists have produced vivid renditions of the idea of a space station or habitat, and these iterations can be categorized by some of the basic scientific concepts from which they are derived.

The O'Neill cylinder is a space settlement design proposed by American physicist Gerard K. O'Neill in his 1976 book 'The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space'. O'Neill proposed the colonisation of space for the 21st century, using materials extracted from the Moon and later from asteroids.

An O'Neill cylinder would consist of two counter-rotating cylinders. The cylinders would rotate in opposite directions in order to cancel out any gyroscopic effects that would otherwise make it difficult to keep them aimed toward the Sun. Each would be 5 miles (8.0 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. They would rotate so as to provide artificial gravity via centrifugal force on their inner surfaces.

Getting off a planet is costly and dangerous, and requires the expenditure of a great deal of energy. Stephen Hawking has predicted the extinction of the human race within the next thousand years, unless we build habitats in space or on other planets/moons in that time.

How far will we get by the year 2100?
Come along and find out!

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