The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space

356 Pages·53.752 MB·English

by  Gerard K. O'Neill

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This is the best book on space colonies.
Because Gerard O'Neill wrote
it.
Gerard K. O'Neill is universally recognized
as the world's leading space colony authority.
Now, as we enter the great new space age, he
—
maps our exciting future with a comprehensive
and factual account of the prospects for
— —
all of us men and women as we begin to build
human
a paradise of floating worlds.
Bantam Books is proud to publish
this special edition of a landmark book,
magnificently illustrated by the
distinguished American artist, Donald Davis.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GERARD K. O'NEILL was born in Brooklyn,
N.Y. He graduated from Swarthmore College in
1950 with high honors in physics, and received
his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in
1954. He went to Princeton University in 1954
as an instructor and became a professor in 1965.
Dr. O'Neill's main research area is high-en-
ergy particle physics. In 1956 he invented the
storage-ring technique for colliding particle
beams, a method which is now the basis for
nearly every new high-energy machine. His
studies on the humanization of space began in
1969 as a result of undergraduate teaching at
Princeton, and were first published in 1974. Dr.
O'Neill was selected by the editors of Aviation
Week as one of the Americans who contributed
most to the development of the aerospace field
in the year 1975. In the 1976-77 academic year,
while on sabbatical leave from Princeton, he
visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy as the Jerome Clarke Hunsaker Professor of
Aerospace.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
DONALD DAVIS is a freelance artist who spe-
cializes in aerospace-related subjects. He has
done paintings for NASA, working on the Viking
project and space colonization, and is a scien-
tific illustrator for the U.S. Geological Survey.
THE
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FISIIBIBTIEIS
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To
Edward
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Dorothy
This low-priced Bantam Book
has been completely reset in a typeface
designedfor easy reading, and was printed
from new plates. It contains the complete
text ofthe original hard<over edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
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THE HIGH FRONTIER
A Bantam Book published by arrangement with
I
William Morrow and Company, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
William Morrow edition publishedJanuary 1977
Serialized edition in mainliner magazine May 1977
Bantam edition /January 1978
All rights reserved.
©
Copyright 1976, 1977 by Gerald K. O'Neill
©
Illustrations copyright 7977 by Donald Davis.
This book may not he reproduced in whole or in part, by
mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: William Morrow and Co.. Inc.
105 Madison Avenue. New York. New York 10016
ISBN 0-553-11016-0
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Its trade-
mark, ctmsisiing of the words "Bantam Books" and the por-
trayal of a bantam, is registered in the United States Patent
Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam
Books. Inc.. 666 Fifth Avenue. New York. New York 10019.
printed in the united states of AMERICA
0987654321
ciiari'Kan's
A LETTER
FROM
SPACE
HUMAN
THE 13
PROSPECT ON
PLANET EARTH
THE PLANETARY 29
HANGUP
NEW
HABITATS 41
FOR HUMANITY
ISLANDS IN SPACE 63
NEW EARTH
6 83
AND
RISKS 99
DANGERS
8 THE FIRST 115
NEW WORLD
9 FIRST TASKS 165
FOR ISLAND ONE
10 TRYING IT OUT 201
11 HOMESTEADING 223
THE ASTEROIDS
HUMAN
12 THE 249
PROSPECT IN SPACE
APPENDIX Taking It to the People 275
1
APPENDIX Testimony before the 313
2 Subcommittee on
Aerospace Technology
and National Needs,
U.S. Senate,
1976
Jan. 19,
327
REFERENCES
337
INDEX
i'iseface:
isasktam
ei»iti«»ss
In the brief span of a year between publication of the
William Morrow and the Bantam editions of The High
Frontier, so much progress has been made toward the
understanding and realization of the High Frontier con-
cept that 1 felt the need to share knowledge of that progress
with the reader. In the course of writing this expanded
edition, I've not only had the chance to update the book
but to make stylistic changes and to assess the statements
made when I first wrote The High Frontier from 1974 to
1976.
Nearly all of the numerical detail in the first edition has
been replaced by comparisons; **as big as a football field"
rather than dimensions in square meters, for example. In
part this luxury of making the numbers less obtrusive has
been possible because, in the meantime, several weighty
and technical documents have been published by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. These
support but go far beyond my old calculations and make it
unnecessary to burden the reader of a nontechnical book
A
with numerical detail. comparison of the editions will
show, though, that no information has been lost.
For those of us actively working toward the realization
of the High Frontier concept, it's a relief occasionally to
"skip school" and to explore habitat designs as a change
from the serious engineering that we do every day. In 1977
a NASA-supported study devoted a small part of its effort
to comparative habitat design; by good luck, those designs
I'd chosen to emphasize in this book turned out to rank at
the top when checked.against objective computer calcula-
tions.
In this rewrite I've added many results of recent work;
for example, the newest work on "how to get from here to
there," using the Space Shuttle to establish a first beach-
head in space. This Bantam edition also covers each step
in habitat design, from the earliest modular apartment
houses in space through the "Crystal Palace" to Island One
itself. Don Davis has illustrated each of these steps v^ith
beautiful line draw^ings.
By now^ the Lagrange point L5 had lost its status as the
probable best site for Island One. After a serious flirtation
with a two-w^eek orbit, in v^ork done in 1976, the latest
choice seems to be rather drab: a near-circular orbit with a
period of several weeks, partway out toward the Moon.
"L5" is such a handy title, though, that I decided not to
abandon Any time the reader encounters "L5" as a
it.
colony site, it should be thought of as convenient
shorthand for "whatever orbit the production engineers
and the celestial-mechanics experts finally settle on." By
the same time token, there's little to choose among many
such orbits, and new good ones are being found nearly
every month.
When I began writing the first edition, the High Frontier
concept was still almost a personal hobby of mine, inno-
cent of federal funding and known only to a few people. By
the time of this Bantam edition, though the concept was
still controversial and far from being a scheduled program,
it was receiving intensive study, with modest but signifi-
cant federal support. Fortunately, during that interval the
original calculations had been shown to be on the conser-
vative side, and the mass-driver concept, central to the
conquest of the High Frontier, had been verified by a
successful working model.
my
During the last eventful years, one of greatest plea-
sures has been meeting and coming to know w^ell a number
of highly talented individuals who have become my work-
ing colleagues and close friends. No one can say yet
whether the dream of the High Frontier will remain only a
dream, or whether we are even now on the first steps
toward its realization. If we are, that success will be due in
large part to those friends and colleagues with whom
it is
my
great pleasure to work.
Gerard K. O'Neill
Princeton,
N.J.
October 1977.