It seems that back in the 1970s over the course of three summers, artists and scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center set out to envision what living in a space colony in the future might look like.
Turns out it’s pretty ambitious.
They looked at three different styles of structures: toroidal (torus-shaped), Bernal spheres and cylindrical shaped colonies. Here’s what they produced:
(All images credit: Ames Research Center)
Toroidal Space Colony Concept
These were designed to hold around 10,000 people each.
Bernal Spheres Colony Concept
These were designed to also hold 10,000 colonists. The Bernal Sphere is a point design with a spherical living area.
Cylindrical Colony Concept
These are the big boys on the block. These puppies were designed to hold 1,000,000 colonists!
More Information
For more on NASA’s space settlement program, check out this page.
