Would you like to live in Space?

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Is this where Jeff Bezos is headed?

O’Neill Cylinder Space Settlement

https://space.nss.org/o-neill-cylinder- ... ettlement/

The O’Neill Cylinder, designed by Princeton physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, is considerably larger than the other two designs, and is referred to as an “Island 3” or 3rd- generation space colony. The configuration consists of a pair of cylinders, each 20 miles long and 4 miles in diameter. Each cylinder has three land areas alternating with three windows, and three mirrors that open and close to form a day-night cycle inside. The total land area inside a pair of cylinders is about 500 square miles and can house several million people. The cylinders are always in pairs which rotate in opposite directions, making it much easier to keep them aimed toward the sun. For more information see O’Neill’s original paper on The Colonization of Space (Physics Today, 1974).

(click on the link to read the rest of the article)
https://space.nss.org/o-neill-cylinder- ... ettlement/

Would this finally solve the problems of "scarcity" - scarce food, water, land?

Caltech is working on the space based solar, which can make space based settlements self sufficient. November 6, 2022 launch.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ne_Mission

Abstract—This paper describes Caltech’s Space Solar PowerDemonstration One (SSPD-1) payload and upcoming mission on Momentus Space Vigoride 5. SSPD-1 is comprised of three experiments each of which demonstrates the performance of a key technology piece in the space environment. We describe the goals of SSPD-1. The three experiments - Alba, DOLCE andMAPLE are discussed. The launch of SSPD-1 is scheduled for November 6, 2022 on Space X’s Transporter 6 mission.Index Terms—Space solar power, Photovoltaic devices, wireless power transmission, deployable structures

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The tile is a multilayered structure with photovoltaic (PV)material on both surfaces, antennas underneath one of thePV layers and a layer hosting CMOS integrated circuits and routing for reference signals and timing for phase control over the antennas and DC to microwave power conversion. The tile has all the functionality needed to convert solar energy into microwave energy and radiate that energy to a desired location.The tiles are fabricated into strips of lengths ranging from a few meters to 60 meters, and these are laid up into a carbon fiber structure that is attached to a deployment mechanism which, in turn is attached to a spacecraft. The carbon fiber structure supports the active, flexible strips and enables the strips to be folded and coiled into the deployment mechanism for launch stowage. Our current space vehicle design has amass of approximately 430 kg. A power station is made up of many space vehicles either mechanically attached by their booms or autonomously formation flying

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(Click on the link then "Read the full-text" to read the rest of the article)
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ne_Mission

I wouldn't fancy living in space... it has no atmosphere.

No.

Lack of variety of environments, terrible food, terrible toilets.

Anyone who has ever dreamed of playing a real life version of Quidditch (the zero g version of soccer that the kids in Harry Potter's school play on flying broomsticks) might be drawn to the life in space- as such life is envisioned by Gerard O'Neil.

Have been reading about the Gerard O'Neil space colony concept ever since the Seventies. It comes off as more feasible than actually colonizing the surfaces of other planets. The idea is that they build progressively larger pairs of cylinders in space. The cylinders rotate on their axis to create artifical gravity. Eventually they would have fifteen mile long cylinders housing millions of folks - with crops and parks and etc.

The axis of the cylinder would still be zero G. So you could invent zero G sports. I could see how SOME one my be attracted to life in such a place. Might be interesting to visit but I wouldnt wanna live there. And I wouldnt want to be part of the construction crews that build these things.

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezo ... es-oneill/

Where does Jeff Bezos foresee putting space colonists? Inside O’Neill cylinders

BY ALAN BOYLE on October 29, 2016 at 9:44 am

O'Neill cylinder
This artist’s conception from the 1970s shows the interior of an O’Neill cylinder. (Credit: NASA)
SpaceX’s Elon Musk wants to settle humans on Mars. Others talk about a Moon Village. But Seattle billionaire Jeff Bezos has a different kind of off-Earth home in mind when he talks about having millions of people living and working in space.

His long-range vision focuses on a decades-old concept for huge artificial habitats that are best known today as O’Neill cylinders.

The concept was laid out in 1976 in a classic book by physicist Gerard O’Neill, titled “The High Frontier.” The idea is to create cylinder-shaped structures in outer space, and give them enough of a spin that residents on the inner surface of the cylinder could live their lives in Earth-style gravity. The habitat’s interior would be illuminated either by reflected sunlight or sunlike artificial light.


O’Neill cylinders and their ilk have become a standby for hard science-fiction stories. For example, in Kim Stanley Robinson’s “2312,” hollowed-out asteroids known as “terraria” house communities that travel back and forth between planets. In the movie “Interstellar,” Matthew McConaghey’s character finds himself inside an O’Neill-type outpost named Cooper Station near Saturn.

Bezos is said to have talked up the concept in the 1980s, when he was a starry-eyed student at Princeton. Three decades later, he’s the CEO of Amazon with a net worth estimated at $67 billion, and with his own space venture called Blue Origin.

(Click on link to read the rest)
https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezo ... es-oneill/

https://www.newsweek.com/wireless-elect ... 1884?amp=1

Somebody wouldn't want to live there??

Sign me up!

Antarctica is orders of magnitude more habitable and has much more accessible resources than a moon or mars colony. Yet no one wants to live there or develop its resources.

I will believe a moon colony after I see people permanently living in Antarctica and getting paid from private sector and not government funded research work.

Antarctica is a bad analogy because the main reason why countries don't develop it's resources or put permanant settlements there is because of international treaties, not because they can't or don't want to (so you're starting from a false premise). Also, McMurdo base has a hydroponics farm at it, meaning that we would need to do in space in order to live there has already been done in Antarctica.

But it's the same with space. There are international treaties that also prohibit make territorial reclamations in space.
It will be difficult to establish the United Republic of Mars, but I think a scientific colony is permitted.

Not really. The Antarctic Treaty is actually more restrictive than the Space Treaty, because the Space Treaty does not explicitly restrict the extraction and use of resources from space but the Antarctic Treaty does, hence why some people have shown an interest in asteroid mining. Okay, the so-called Moon Treaty tries to restrict extraction of resources from space in a similar way to the antarctic treaty but most space-faring nations have not signed it, the United States in particular does not recognise it. Besides, current space law is a relic of the cold war era, that can probably be renegotiated to some degree.

Not with today's level of space technology.

If we're talking far-future speculative technology levels, then... maybe? But in that case, how different would it really be to living dirtside? Maybe being able to visit a zero-G room, sure, but the novelty seems like it would wear off quickly.

It would be a cool place to live and do experiments, especially once the bone & muscle mass loss issues associated with micro-gravity are eliminated.

Yeah, I mean there'd be no noisy neighbours in space.

^ What would the bus service be like though?