O'Neill Colonies - An Animated Tour

O'Neill Colonies

This video was around eight months in the making. It is a composite of three renders (made using Blender 3D, Photoshop, and DaVinci Resolve) showing the interior of an O'Neill Cylinder, a concept popularized by Gerard K. O'Neill in the 1970s. The basic premise is two cylinders, tethered together in pairs, each one rotating in opposite directions. This gives the colony stability and enables the entire structure to be moved in space via a gyroscopic effect.

Everything is constructed, mostly in orbit, from materials mined on the Moon or on asteroids. Each habitat has a thick lining of Moon rock or similar, to protect occupants against small impacts, cosmic rays and solar radiation.

O'Neill imagined the cylinders to he half land and half glass, with external mirrors outside directing sunlight into the interior. This is a waste of surface real estate, and of course not particularly safe, because the glass cannot provide the protection of a solid hull. Instead, in my interpretation, the light source is a beam running along the central axis, powered by a future technology - perhaps fusion reactions. Weather and interior lighting are intelligently controlled, and night can be simulated by modulating the light source.

Each cylinder rotates at 0.31 revolutions per minute, or 3.2 minutes per revolution. Given the dimensions of the cylinders, this creates an artificial gravity of exactly one gee at the surface, decreasing to zero at the central axis. The upper rotating platforms provide a place for residents acclimated to different gravities, maybe people used to living on Mars, the Moon, or other places. The radial struts, in addition to providing support, contain elevators which people can use to access the axis for low-gravity recreation, as well as the rotating platforms.

I am immensely grateful to Utho Riley who created the music especially for this short movie. I love it!

Please like and subscribe. Spread the love!

Uhto Riley:
   / @uthoriley  
https://uthoriley.com