The early 1970s were an interesting time for NASA. Having achieved the epic goal of men on the moon - and in so doing shattering the perception of Russian dominance of space - the people at NASA needed to scramble to develop a new vision for the space program in order to maintain the publics fickle attentions. I wrote about this previously here.

The vision that NASA developed was nothing if not grand. It involved the colonization of space on a scale so enormous that few in science fiction have managed to surpass it. I remember reading books when I was a lad (not too long back) with some of the following pictures in them and thinking to myself that I’d like to live in space. Looking at the pictures now I still would like to live in space if living in space bore any semblance to what NASA was able to dream up.

All pictures are from NASA - the actual NASA page includes sixteen full color illustrations but ten are shown here:

The external view of a double cylinder colony.

Internal view of cylindrical colony. Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rama” included a cylindrical space ship much in this configuration.

Another view of the interior of the cylindrical colony. Note the suspension bridge crossing the body of water.

Variations on a Toroidal colony. This is probably the most familiar type of space station and was featured prominently in movies such as “2001 - A Space Odyssey.”

One thought that was common in the 1970’s was that aerable land would become more and more scarce on Earth, leading to the need for agriculture in space. Large mirrors would reflect light into the interior of the habitat, making possible large scale growing of food.

The 70s architecture is killer.

This is an exterior view of a Bernal Sphere. The space stations referred to in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the space station Babylon 5 are Bernal Spheres.

Interior views of a Bernal Sphere. Note the suburban lifestyle the pictures seem to advocate and portray. Also note the “human-powered” flying device in the second picture. A spinning sphere doesn’t produce actual gravity so the things such as a flying bike-plane could become possible. Cool.

Building the sphere.

Am I the only one who thinks this future in space looks enticing? I am fully aware of how big a deal it would be to kick something like what is shown above into gear, but I think it would be worth it.