Some fun extra links: Bryan Versteeg's Awesome Kaplana One Cylinder Hab model: vimeo.com/90589263 Fragomatik's equally awesome Kaplana One: ua-cam.com/video/hingjP-BmvA/v-deo.html MIT's groundbreaking graphene mass production technique that got published a couple days ago: news.mit.edu/2018/manufacturing-graphene-rolls-ultrathin-membranes-0418
@@cursedalien You can't terraform Mars pretty much ever and we can't even land on Venus really. Why take the risks? Just use material from small moons and asteroids. Much easier to access.
Tried finding a monotone voice discussing stuff as a sleep aid, yours seemed perfect at first. But, sir, you have failed me! Your content is so fascinating it wakes me rt back up and I’m forced to pay attention! Great channel!
"Even a very avid gardener really only uses maybe the first meter of dirt below them." As a gardener, this made me laugh out loud. So true! The luxury of planetary mass-we're such a baby intelligence in this big universe.
This is one of those UA-cam channels that makes you feel you've struck gold upon finding them. Been a fan for a while now and seriously look forward to all your videos. Please don't ever stop.
Casey Frey I felt the same way; stumbled randomly apon the space warfare video last summer anf just began bindging from there untill there was only the new videoes left XD
I never realized how narrow my view of the possibilities for the future was until I started watching your channel. Thanks for all the awesome videos, and keep it up!
13:30 Regarding L5 vs L4 for O'Neill Cylinder position; could L5 be favorable because it is "chasing" the moon rather than being chased by it, making it easier to move about without compromising orbital position? At L4, a change in velocity moves you closer to or farther from both the earth AND the moon simultaneously, while at L5, change in velocity moves you towards one and away from the other. Seems like a slightly more stable position to me? A larger orbital "bowl" if you will. :-P
I also think it would make transferring supplies from the Moon to the stations more efficient, since they are following it you could simply release the craft destined for the station, slow it down while the station catches up to its position, then match velocity once it's in range. I think this would save on fuel as opposed to accelerating from the Moon 'forward' in order to catch up to any installations at L4, but I'm no scientist so could be completely wrong about that possible advantage.
16:30 I just want to say, that all these buildings within cylinder images are wrong. Assuming that the ends of the cylinders are north and south, the curvature are then east/west. The sides of the buildings facing north/south can indeed be built straight up. The sides facing east/west however, need to take the curvature of the cylinder into account; this will create a subtle A-frame in order to keep the bearing weight going straight down. Likewise, the floors will have to be dished in design to keep it "flat" lest you have things sliding/rolling to your east/west walls. It's a subtle feature, but a necessary engineering challenge.
@@ruphite9521 That would depend on the size of the building. Lets start with height... If you built your east/west walls parallel to each other, a handful of floors might not be an issue. But going higher, you will get what will effectively be a tornado effect. You might see a straight building, but the cylinder won't, it will be tugging on those upper floors on both sides, making it top heavy; and given that the cylinder is rotating, this will become a serious engineering issue. If your building is wide, you will have to design the floor to accommodate; this has to be taken into account, won't matter how big your cylinder is. Your inner ear is a pain in the ass, it will tell you that you're walking uphill or downhill even when your eyes are telling you it's flat. A warehouse for instance, if you stack things up to a certain height, they'll topple over because the cylinder is pulling it sideways. On a big cylinder, you might get away with a two story house with standard blueprints. Much bigger, hmm... I can foresee major construction companies wandering around with a "shell detector" before breaking ground for any large buildings. Arthur did a video about colonizing Ceres, and mentioned spilling juice and watching it crawl under the. His context was that that section of the cylinder hadn't accounted for Ceres's own gravity; but if you build a space cylinder, with interior buildings that have flat floors, you're gonna get the same effect. Gawd help you if you live in a condo on the east or west side on any floor above 20, you'll fall outta bed every night. You'll notice the lean of the water in the bathtub, you'll never get a proper bath cuzz you can't fill the tub. Let's talk about doors. Most doors swing, especially in residential settings. The east/west doors WILL bind on the floor, so unless they're cut up higher to accommodate the floor curve, they will have to slide north/south. Might be a market for sliding doors. Sliding doors on the north/south walls will HAVE to be on curved rails otherwise they will slam shut or conversely, slam open; the higher you go the tighter the curves.
Clint Carpentier weirdly, i can see that becoming something like an attraction for O’Neill cylinder colonies lol, watching water flow away from you under no other effect than the rotation of the colony alone What about on much more massive colonies, like a Bishop ring, which is 2000km across? My thinking is that, at some point, a single structure is too small and too far from the center of rotation to need to accommodate for rotation, then again i wouldn’t really know
@@ruphite9521 Again, it's a matter of scale. Anything that takes up more than a city block, will need to take it into account. Here on Earth, we don't think about it cuzz... the earth is big; but we level everything. There was a special track built to test the top speed of the Bugatti. It is perfectly level the whole way. You can't see the finish line from the start line, due to the curvature of the earth. The earth is some 13,000km across.
@@ruphite9521 You know what, you've given me an idea for a book I've been sporadically working on. These engineering issues happen to be something that will be brought up, however, these "typical" buildings aren't a major feature of the books; or rather, they aren't the focus, so it keeps feeling like I'm shoving it into the story just to have it there. But, if I build a small cylinder, say less than 5km across, and build structures like in the photos in this video, purposely flawed, it could be used as a engineering school of what not to do, and as a realtor's example of why "fresh colonists" are paying so much for homes that appear somewhat wonky. Thank you.
Expensive may not be the problem. Think about how people traveled west in America for more resources then they reached the resources and then just stayed their. Then they have kids amd the kids have no desire to leave. Their would just be no desire to leave and go to earth since you consider that place "home"
Actually, these habitats could be quite luxurious and amenity laden to boot! Imagine a smaller version set up as a luxury housing development or resort in outer space! Swimming pools, bowling alleys, fitness suites, mini golf courses, luxury dwellings and or hotel rooms and suites with views of Earth, Luna, Mars, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its moons or some other major celestial bodies. My guess is that units on habitats orbiting Jupiter and Saturn would command premium price tags!
@Arusiek90 Unfortunately I have to agree that there is a terrible risk if these being turned into a giant playground for some megalomaniacal cult leader. Cults of personality could change tube life forever.
Character Analysis: Isaac Arthur Science: 100 (max) Futurism: 100 (max) Awesomeness: Beyond measure Special abillity: Ultimate video analysis of science and futurism, able to insta kill lower level opponents by sheer mental desintegration
It's a generic leveling system distorted for the purposes of this joke, a lot of games tend to cap stats at 100, I guess a good example would be the Elder Scrolls franchise
all the megastructure videos are really, really awesome. you make an excellent case in each one for the advantages of building and living in space as opposed to colonization. just generally, thank you so much for all of these. they're so interesting and honestly inspiring. : ]
I've been listening to this channel since I discovered it two weeks ago. I keep it on all day at work instead of the radio. High quality intellectual stimulation. Best content on UA-cam. Outstanding work.
Your channel was the best of its kind on UA-cam from the very beginning, and yet somehow still manages to keep getting better and better all the time. I hope you keep this up for a good long time, and that more people keep discovering you too. Closing in on a quarter of a million subs now too. Wow! You never fail to impress! :-)
Best part of Waking Up, is Arthur Teaching Stuff! Y'know, you are the first youtube channel I actually FOLLOW, not just sub to and check in on once in a while. I've never really gotten into the whole 'social media' stuff, as I mostly read novels. Love the information and the presentation.
I'm glad you brought up Gundam, since the space colonies were actually one of the more interesting parts of the setting. Plenty of animes have giant robots killing one-another, but the space colonies are pretty unique to Gundam in that genre. And sometimes I wish we'd get more of an exploration on the dynamic that they create.
Yes I'm not really all that familiar with the series, as its hard to know where to really start and a lot is fairly weak, but they do seem to give a lot more depth than "giant robots, let's fight!"
I suppose you could say the main time-line was the UC (universal century) timeline, which started with the original Mobile Suit Gundam. That might be a good starting place. Even though it comes off as a little kiddy because of the cast, it does a good job of setting the stage. There's a few spinoffs from that one that were worth watching, Stardust Memories, War in the Pocket, and 08th MS squad. And Zeta Gundam was probably my favorite from the UC timeline. If you wanted something a little more modern, maybe the 00 series, or Iron Blooded Orphans, although those are definitely influenced by the trends of the times, imo. All that said, i wouldn't blame you for saying that Gundam isn't really your thing. Anyways, hope this helps.
I've been watching Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin recently and have been really enjoying it. It's not really about giant robots (they generally only show up in flashbacks for the first several episodes) blowing stuff up so much as it's about the backstory to the antagonist in the original series and the political consequences of colonizing the solar system. I'm new to the franchise, and I've found it to be pretty accessible. Granted, it is plagued by melodrama and some eyebrow-raising coincidences, not to mention some really forced elements designed to fit the existing continuity. Even so, if you suspend some disbelief, it's pretty enjoyable. In any event, I just found your page, Mr. Arthur, and am very much enjoying it. Thank you so much for the work you put into these videos!
Isaac Arthur- If you want to check out Gundam I highly recommend starting with the manga Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, it’s a retelling of the original series, but so much better. I’d also recommend Gundam 0080: War in The Pocket, it’s a short six episode miniseries that 90% takes place in a single O’Neill Cylinder, and I think you’d enjoy how they decided to design the layout of the inside of the colony. Also since it’s a stand alone side-story you really don’t have to know anything before hand to enjoy it.
this is so fascinating. people really dont talk about O'Neill cylinders in science fiction enough... its always terraforming. but this is a WAY more viable option. I also loved that idea of O'Neill cylinder + dyson sphere. Brilliant solution to the energy problem
I feel like you missed something with your concept of invading these O'Neil cylinders. First, a deathtrap isn't of much consequence to drones and sabotage and internal divisions could be another non-destructive way to conquer them. There's also the possibility of these cylinders linking up to combine computing power and intelligence to better wage information warfare. In that case the biggest and smartest groups do have a large potential advantage. Large swarms of AI controlled drones with thermal shielding for lasers might be able to board without destroying the place. Gotta say though, loved the video, it's one I've been waiting for.
Internal sabotage is always a seperate issue, as for instance you might bribe/subvert the port security and spill out ten thousand elite shock troops from a grain ship. You can't really virus or psych warfare one though, they can shut off all exterior comms, such a cylinder is basically a giant faraday cage. And drones are just as susceptible to bottlenecks as humans, if you're using swarms of them they probably have them too, though sheer material loss in droves is easier to keep up than people loss, so fair point there. People might get touchy you lost a trillion dollars in drones swarming a place but less so than a million troops.
I suppose that would make drone-swarms on these cylinders used for either something that's more important than cost (like a religious or ideological war) or when the cost is worth it to gain the resources in it, if ever. Although you could recycle the drones to some extent afterward with whatever material isn't flying off too fast to be caught. Thanks for responding, you made some awesome points. I didn't really consider the faraday cage being part of the built-in package. Sneaking in malware through normal trade and communications is the only other thing I could think of and that would probably not be too easy.
There is also the option of simply _engulfing_ an opponent's entire space structure inside a much larger one. It becomes a sort of Pac-Man game, on a gigantic scale! There they would be cut off from trade, communications, and disposal of waste heat. They either power down everything, or slowly heat up and 'cook in their own juices'. Surrender or Die!
Possibly your best video yet! Thank you. I was in my prime at the time of the birth of O'Neil Cylinders and the L5 Society. There was such optimism at that time and we did what we could to make it happen. Alas... I so appreciate your efforts Isaac to educate and to keep the flame alive!
Kiran R - Recommendations have gotten better. But -- and maybe it's a particularly hard problem for their fancy machine learning -- I wish their algorithms were able to identify a "wing-nuts" characteristic and exclude it from my recommendations. Because I watch Issac Arthur videos does not mean that I'm interested in "Obama has a secret base on Mars" videos, and the like. :-)
@@savary5050My comment was a joke that being anti political is political. If a place is natural enough without politics, why introduce it artificially in the guise of being a centrist, apolitical or above it all?
I have had an idea kicking around for a while about how to besiege a space station other than destroying it: You could beam lots of radiation at it to heat it up or reduce how effective its cooling systems are. This can be tailored to e.g. prevent heavy industry, or prevent food growing, or actually make people uncomfortable. This would require the cooperation of parties that have more power than the station under siege, but in a 3D arrangement you can have a lot of neighbours to be attacking you. Unrelated to this: an advantage of planets over space stations is that any air that leaks out of a space station is lost to interplanetary space, but air has a much harder time leaking out of a planet, especially as rock planets are usually less dense than Earth and so would have a higher escape velocity if they had the same surface gravity (OTOH as you say such planets will be super-rare).
It's an option but it would have to be sustained for it not to basically be explosive weapon fire, and they could start countering by mirror-ing up their hull for instance. Same as with taking out their power supplies, to freeze them out, it could work as they might surrender before it got fatal.
Causing a leak would piss off everyone in an Oneal cylinder. If they are under a kilometer of ice it would be hard to measure if you killed anyone. Some are going to be indoors and buildings are not hard to keep independently sealed. The gas that escaped to space could be either the atmosphere or gas from pressurized tanks or cryo-liquid. The fission nuclear reactor waste will continue radiating heat whether or not anyone is alive. You would not know how much of the kilometers of icy mass was liquefied. Punching a hole would not disable surface point defense systems. On a rocky planet like Earth you get weather everywhere. Radioactive fallout from the attack and/or your own failed reactors will blow around. Cracks in some deep bunkers will allow in flood water. Warm spots with industrial activity or large life-support systems will have convection currents and identifiable infra-red signature. Extremely deep bunkers like Cheyenne mountain complex are in known locations and very difficult to rearrange. You cannot go too deep without hitting magma. In addition to retaining air Earth will also pull molten rock back onto it's surface. "Buried under magma" is fatal for most terrestrial bunker designs.
Isaac Arthur might be worth it, as historically sieges of castles and fortified cities was something that could take months, years, or even longer. It was often simply too bloody to simply take such a fortification so the only option is to siege them. This way they can strong-arm into surrender, or simply prevent them from supplying and supporting your enemies forces.
Radiated heat is infrared light and hence can be reflected and focused. Imagine the heat radiators being in an enclosed chamber which reflects and focuses the light out through a narrow slit in the outer insulating hull. Very little radiated heat from an external sources would get in but the radiated heat would still get out. Heating such aperture heat radiators from the outside would be an ineffective attack.
Q_Q in these upsetting times having a voice of reason and interest in the hope of humanity and the great wonders of the expanse, reminds me to never stop seeing the beauty of it all.
Hey Isaac, am a big fan of your channel and I just wanted to say it's visionaries/futurists like you that give hope to civilization and the survival of mankind, conversations about the near and far future should take place more often as it gives us much to strive for and something to look forward to, keep making great videos!
Your content and research is second to none. I'm grateful for the effort and insight in which you instill within each video. Please continue the good work. Your dedication to these subjects is much appreciated!
This episode is really good. At first I wanted more details (numbers) for the different cylinder designs but overall this is a _really_ good episode. Very well done. Bravo!
YEESSSS!!!! I've been looking forward to this one for a while :D. I've already clicked 'like' before even watching the video. That's how much faith I have in the quality of your content.
Greg, I do have them on but sometimes I get the notification and sometimes I don't. UA-cam AI has run amok. It is like that for all the channels I subscribe and hit the bell on.
Christina Kirschner You can change the settings for notifications. You can set it to get most notifications or all. It's only on the web version, not mobile (or at least not Android).
It is set for all. This is a known "feature" of notification. It happens less for this channel and A LOT more for Philip DeFranco and Jimmy Dore. Oddly, I get every notification for RT. UA-cam be playing with their AI.
One thing I wondered when I designed a large O'Neil habitat for a sci-fi RPG is why the atmosphere would spin with the ground. My reference design was 10 km radius and 100 km long, hollowed out of an asteroid. For 1G surface gravity that's one rotation every three and a half minutes, or a tangential velocity of 313 m/s. Left to itself, the interior atmosphere would be static with reference to the outside, which would translate to a continuous speed of sound hurricane racing across the inner surface. Of course, there would be some friction between the surface and the air, reducing the speed somewhat, but we're still most likely talking hurricane weather. The obvious solution was a set of baffles, five kilometres high, that contained the lower altitude air, forcing it to spin with the surface. Of course it created a transition zone at the tops between the non-rotating core air and the rotating outer air, a series of horizontal tornadoes trailing off the top edges. The whole interior geometry was designed so that the tornadoes formed the core of the air circulation and mixing system, as well as assisting cloud formation. One of the recreation activities was skydiving in a wingsuit. Since gravity is apparent, and can be partially negated by flying fast enough in the anti-spin direction, you could pretty much adjust your terminal velocity to suit yourself with enough momentum. You landed on the central annular sea using skis or a board.
It's a treat getting to dive deep into this topic. O-cylinders are ubiquitous in Tera forming & colonization discussions. It's ironic that they have not already had their own episode. Thanks for the refresher course!
FYI, "Rendezvous With, Rama" is an AWESOME book!! Very beautifully scientific and one of the few works of fiction that deals with inherent (and potentially grave) danger where no one actually gets severely/violently hurt, etc. Sorry if that was a bit of a spoiler, but for those of you more interested in science that a lot of killing and stuff… I think you will appreciate this heads up :-)
The little cylinders or bubbles in rings around the O'neill cylinder are supposed to be for agriculture. Since i'm a farmer I found these interesting. Each one could have say 1000 hectares of planting area, and the climate would be sutiable for certain crops. The next bubble could be very different, or the same crop at a different stage, to provide a steady food supply. Although insects and microfauna and -flora would be required, pathogenic ones could be excluded. In a plant disease emergency the atmosphere could be evacuated temporarily. Every enviroment of Earth could be duplicated, thus every plant or animal could be adapted, as long as the gravity were simulated, there was enough water and a layer of dirt, which could be created from crushed space rock plus bio-inputs to decompose it. It needen't take too long.
Great video. I tend to imagine that there will be few if any building on an O’Neil cylinder. Rooms will be built into the cylinder itself. The large centre space will be an ornate garden.
On Babylon 5, I always found myself wishing that they would show more of the "outdoor" areas in the open interior. Most scenes took place in rooms and corridors. Also, how did they have gravity in the CNC room?
Yes I wish there'd been more of that too, but while they were really ahead of their time in CGI use interior shots are harder than exterior for O'Neills. We get that one really nice shot where Sheridan is falling and Koch catches him, but that's about it, and if you watch that high-red these days it doesn't age well. As to the CNC, I've heard two semi-explanations that I'm not sure are canon. First ones is that it does actually turn just seperatetly, second that ti does but the grav in there is lower, and they just can't practically film that.
I have been waiting since Monday to try out my Brand new SFIA Coffee Cup ( Thank you Isaac) waiting for the next release in this Epic Series! Now I am set with it full and a Chocolate Brownie so lets get the O'Neill Cylinders rolling!
Cost is realative as most of the construction would be automated with materials harvested on the Moon or from a near Earth asteroid. The Stanford Toruses estimated 10 million tons of material with 95% being for the radiation shield. I see the radiation shield being ground up regolith ( Moon dirt ), bounded together with plastic. Plastic can be generated from the dry ice and frozen water that are expected to exist on asteroids, comets and perhaps deep craters on the Moon. Basically the radiation shield could be 3d printed from materials that require little more than a drone bull dozer to harvest and Fischer Tropsche reactor chambers to synthesize the plastic, calcium oxides could also be produced for cement as a binder. Basically, the cost is only for the giant 3d printer, and the drones and would be amortized by the number of habitats produced eventually bringing the costs to near zero. I see the pressure vessel to be separated from the static radiation shield via halbach arrays of magnets, presumably with zero g it would require minimal magnetic levitation to keep the pressure vessel from touching the radiation shield. Transferring heat from the rotating section to the non rotating section would be a problem, I would suspect having heat radiators on the rotating section may be a necessity but the infrared radiation from these radiators could be directed by parabolic mirrors and lenses to be through minimal apertures thereby avoiding picking up heat from external sources and therefore not be large portrusions, they would literally be red glowing lines in the structure. In theory, such an aperture heat shield could still expel heat directly into the Sun or any other external heat source. If the habitat was part of a generation ship, the heat radiators could be directed to provide a degree of propulsion. As to a simple way to manufacture the pressure vessel in an automated fashion, what I came up with was the production of wire. It's the simplest machined metal you can produce and should be easily automated. With wire, cables can be wound, again an easily automated process, with cables we could knit a structure together with a loom such as a spool loom which is ideal for producing a tube. Yes, knitted structures have holes but these could be welded, perhaps by thermite reactions by coating the structure with iron oxide and aluminum powders and igniting them, the thermite might even be wound into the cables to begin with. The pressure vessel could be filled with ammonia gas as water ice in space is often ammonia water ice, electric arc lights could separate the nitrogen from the hydrogen in the ammonia gas, the centrifugal force would collect the hydrogen and it could be vented or stored. Any regolith to be used as soil in the habitat would have to be "weathered" in rock tumblers to remove the sharp edges and plants and algae would have to remove the remaining trace ammonia as well as provide oxygen, the CO2 for the plants can be from the dry ice. As to the sky, MIT once used computers to calculate the diffraction patterns needed to produce holographic images on a crt but it was computationally intensive, however a sunny sky and night sky could be calculated in advance and shown in a cycle perhaps even a few clouds and the occasional passing dragon. Special sequences could be shown on various holidays such as Santa Claus passing overhead, fireworks, shooting stars and auroras, maybe even a second moon. Even a 2d projection would be quite convincing. You could have several layers of such habitats each with a holographic roof so the living space can be very natural rather than city like. The holographic projection might be necessary for some species such as bees which all died off in Biosphere 2, some species may simply require a more natural sky just to survive perhaps to navigate. Yes, I've given these habitats far too much thought.
Nice hearing about The Expanse again, easily my favorite tv series at the moment. Going to be traveling this summer and I hope to make it through the books in my down time. Another great episode.
Well, I just came across this and it made me smile. I have an original copy of the High Frontier in my collection. It proved invaluable to me over twenty years ago when my partner Ron Thornton and I designed Babylon 5. Yep, I've got a gold lady holding a sphere for that work. Also an award from the Space Frontier Foundation and I have to say it was the very best part of my career. I mined O'Neal's book and that gave us dimensions, density and rates of rotation for the station. It also gave us guidance so we could inform Strazynski as to technical dialog in the show. Babylon 5 would absolutely work. Our design called for 6 layers below the interior cylinder where the most valuable layer was directly below the internal surface and the slums of the station was directly adjacent to the outside of the hull. We got to have the fun of baking in the culture and social dynamics of living on a structure such as an L5 cylinder. you forgot to mention (although it's obvious) another benefit of this is that manufacturing is done outside the rotating cylinder since there's a lot of benefit to building stuff in a weightless environment. One third of B5 didn't rotate and that where we envisaged the manufacturing area to be. We felt that local fusion power (Although Thorium fluid reactors look interesting, there's a lot of it out there) would actually be better than solar since it would give independence of site . We envisaged a B5 as being able to be cast adrift and operate anywhere in the universe. Although we never got to show it we had designs and early CG for the robotic constructor of the B5 class of stations. It would be essentially a planetoid eater. It would identify a source target and mine, refine, manufacture and assemble an L5 automatically. We worked really hard to observe real physics in the show and I think we made it richer for it. I apologize for the FTL conceit, what can I say, Warner Bros made us do it. I'm now mostly retired but I'm an avid player of Elite Dangerous where I spend my time as an interplanetary bus driver. Elon's got it wrong, we shouldn't be going to Mars, we should be building this, and creating Arc's for humanity.
I read the High Frontieer a few years ago, I stumbled upon it while doing some research and when I started reading it, I couldnt put it down for several days. I'm happy that you covered it specifically. Thank you
O'Neill Cylinders and Ringworlds are the least expensive, most doable, versatile and desirable alternatives for space colonization. As a business owner, whilst I am still very far from being able to implement something like this, I firmly believe that the aforementioned and a Lunar facility capable of being a hub for asteroid mining (both sending and receiving ships) are the most important projects we should take on before the end of the century. (Not martian colonization)
I agree. Lunar prospecting, for the purpose of colony-building should come first. Perhaps we'll tackle Mercury for power station building after that. Mars's moons (not Mars) make a good place to learn asteroid-mining. It'll be orbital colony life the whole way, until our tech is so cheap and safe that we can visit planetary surfaces for science and leisure (but not permanent colonization).
Try simultaneous interferometry across orbital distances. Comparing data from two antennae is almost as good as a single antenna of size =to the distance between them. We do a lot of good with observations earth-diameter simultaneously and across Earth's orbit around the Sun 6 months later. How about a big telescope/antennae array at the Earth-Sun L-4 & 5 region. Easy access from here. Probably needs a magsail to occasionally use to change its orbit. Now have one at the space colony at Mars, and among Jupiter's moons, then Saturn. Out at 520AU is the focus point of the Sun's gravitational lens, to the region around the center of the galaxy. That needs an O'Neill habitat university city / resort. Distances to comet-bodies for supply are great, but relative velocities are tiny. Any of a number of near-term interstellar ship engines which make lousy slow interstellar ships, do just fine. Dyson's "Super" Orion can get up to .1C total velocity change, so that makes a 5million ton hotel-liner that crosses 100AU in 17 days, @ peak midcourse speed.
Dear Dr. I. Arthur, thank you for your notifications about his interesting videos, and I'm really happy when I receive your notification. I have difficulties in the English language but with the translator, I follow every word for all of his explanation as it is really interested in all the projects, programs and future planetary and interplanetary explorations towards the entire Universe. I hope that he will continue incessantly in these videos with new and fascinating documents on the exploration and colonization of space and also with all his new possible initiatives of future spatial and cosmological interest. Thanks again.
@isaacarthur An explanation exists to address your question (posed around 13:22) in this video. O'Neill himself explained that L4 would be a great place for the "Catcher's Mitt" for things launched from Lunar mines because there would necessarily need to be fewer people living there to handle industrial processing, in that somewhat "less safe" environment, before shipping the end-product off to Earth, or wherever it was destined. Why is it less safe? It precedes the Moon in its orbit, picking up more micrometors as a consequence. The Moon tends to sweep up the small junk in orbit, leaving a "tube" of comparatively clear space in its wake. L5 follows along that orbit, encountering far less debris, making it a safer place to be. On another note... Although I don't recall you discussing it at any point, one of my favourite industrial space processes to imagine is foamed metal. In freefall bubbles don't "rise to the surface" so a given sample could be 20-50-80% lighter (for example) but due to the stress transfer from internal spheres of gas, it would be just as strong. The same reasoning applies to the driveshaft of a car-which is hollow-because making it solid doesn't give it significantly more strength and adds unneccessary mass. Used to build skyscrapers, it could make much taller structures possible. As to *receiving* it here on Earth, foamed steel or aluminium could simply be deorbited into the ocean, where it would happily float until a barge came along to pick it up. Some other examples of industrial manufacture (crystals, drugs, et al) could make a really interesting episode... Anyway, keep up the good work. I've always enjoyed your channel...
I'm eternally grateful to your Mars collaboration with Curious Droid for introducing your channel into my life! Quality content as ever, and new things to ponder.
A full episode for Gundam would be awesome! Universal Century only, though! syaondri, he mentioned "giant humanoid combat robots" with footage of the life size RX-78 model in Japan at the opening of his Space Warfare video. He said as cool as the idea of giant robots is, it's not feasible.
For this1 I realy wish i could spam-hitt the likebotton and have them all count. Been thinking about these cylinders as a favorite passtime before sleep for 25 years now.
Remarkable sir, quite remarkable. You really have a gift for this, a first class expositor. We need dreamers, nay, visionaries like you. The ideas might not be all yours, but you cloth them in a beauty and majesty entirely of your own making.
Note that Sunlight can be piped in anywhere, so multiple levels of habitation and office space below "ground" could still have open areas of greenery like huge shopping malls or arboretums do. If the spin radius is big enough, there might be hardly any difference in G level between the under and ground levels. They planned if not detail-designed for 4 miles diameter, but that wasn't the biggest that was readily feasible with then-known technology. Note that long cylinders cannot be doe, because they need the center of mass to be away from the axis, out around the rim. The Kalpana One shorter cylinder was as long as it could be made to still be stable as a simple shell. If multiple levels built of concrete are below-grade adding rim-mass while the center is open sky, that means even longer aspect ratio might be allowed.10+km diameter is feasible, and tens of km long...
HebaruSan there’s no reason that there couldn’t be a better balance struck. There ARE some examples on Earth, we just resist these for greed’s sake or simplicity of understanding.
Habitats like this are the future of civilization. Break up Venus, Mars and Mercury and you have enough building material to build a vast amount of habitats. Keep Earth intact as a park/museum.
Yeah rotatating habitats are far more practical and cost effective than terraforming an entire planet. Sadly it'll be the only way to ensure the survival of our species into the next millennium.....maybe.
Hey Isaac I just want to say that I discovered you yesterday and I love your videos. I also love your voice; I'm guessing you probably get a lot of flack for it throughout your life but I find it strangely compelling. Keep up the good work, friend.
Boarding one is likely to take a huge effort, but do you really need to occupy every area to conquer it? Capturing its nuclear reactor/s or by taking over its solar panels should make things easier and seriously limit any resistance.
That's pretty technology dependent and architecture dependent. Each individual home might easily be built to survive vacuum ruptures and would imply a battery at least and possibly a generator, and would depend a lot on how compact power generators are. For that matter the whole station is one giant flywheel you could leach spin off for power. The thing is though, scale-wise you wouldn't be depriving them of air, nor food or water, you'd basically be freezing them out on a timeline dependent on the structure's size vs surface area and proximity to Sol, and you'd wreck the ecosystem inside long before you got the people. It's an avenue that, if practical, does represent a middle ground beyond 'blow place up' though, so good point.
I don't see boarding one to be a problem, you would have a non-rotating zero g docking facility perhaps even a hanger with a plasma atmosphere shield and movement to the rotating section would be by mag Lev pods that dock to the non-rotating section, then separates and race around to match the rotating section to dock to later. Boarding such a habitat could literally just be an elevator or rather turbo elevator to quote Star Trek parlance. Obviously larger cargo pods would be available perhaps even a ring that spins up to dock with the habitat and slows down to dock with the zero g section.
There was a tantalising glimpse of a cylinder interior at the end of the Interstellar movie. Someone should write a novel or series set in an orbital archipelago of habitats with different factions of political and religious groups living in each and maybe a detective who has to infiltrate these to find something/someone.
This concept is great until the Spacenoids try to declare independence and drop one of these colonies on Australia causing global ecosystem chaos. Damn Zekes...
Sorry again about your speech, I'm used to it after watching so many of your videos. You mention artistic license. Compared to so many other peoples videos, it's like they are still using a learners permit. Yours are always top notch. Good work as always!
From engineering perspective, I wonder how would you connect the rotating parts to the not rotating? Huge air proof baerings? It just seems too much of a hassle. In movies and animations you often see a ship with only a part as a rotating habitat, what would be the benefit of the not rotating parts that is worth the trouble of building a constantly moving connector, that probably needs constant maintenence? Love the channel, been here from almost the beginning. My favorite on youtube and it also beats the high end documentaries, cause you go into details and that's great brain candy and leaves you wondering until the next episode comes along. Awsome work, can't thank you enough for all the hours of education and entertainment. All the best!
Some fun extra links:
Bryan Versteeg's Awesome Kaplana One Cylinder Hab model: vimeo.com/90589263
Fragomatik's equally awesome Kaplana One: ua-cam.com/video/hingjP-BmvA/v-deo.html
MIT's groundbreaking graphene mass production technique that got published a couple days ago: news.mit.edu/2018/manufacturing-graphene-rolls-ultrathin-membranes-0418
waaaaait a minute, where have I seen a big wheel in space? *pokes gundam wing and cowboy bebop with a stick*
i would think a torus like shape would do nicely
Are you planning on condensing all of these into a book? it would be fantastic, specially if you also include those fantastic illustrations
Like the Galapagos, we will undoubtedly see quite a lot of diversification on the different habitats if they are reproductively isolated enough.
I've seriously considered it, still on the fence
Douglas Adams:
-Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
Isaac Arthur:
-*it's free real estate*
Actually laughed at that, gg.
AlHoresmi kek
also, draw away from the principality of Zeon, because they drop colonies on your head.
Slartibartifast is gonna be pissed... or perhaps not... can rotating habitats have fjords? I hear he's good wth fjords.
Mckendree cylinders (carbon nanotube) could have fjords. O'Neill (steel, aluminium) ones, not so much..
These cylinders are my favorite solution for making humans extra-planetary! Terraforming takes waaay too long! Thanks for the video.
agreed, mars, venus etc are merely a mineral larder we will mine
This is the only way for one G. (Cloud cities on Venus or Saturn?)
These can be anywhere.
Oh no a system event? Right boot up the engines and watch from a distance
Yeah, but wouldn't it be so rewarding to watch evolutionary radiations play out on every terraformable rock?
@@cursedalien You can't terraform Mars pretty much ever and we can't even land on Venus really. Why take the risks? Just use material from small moons and asteroids. Much easier to access.
Tried finding a monotone voice discussing stuff as a sleep aid, yours seemed perfect at first. But, sir, you have failed me! Your content is so fascinating it wakes me rt back up and I’m forced to pay attention! Great channel!
i actually use this channel as an educational sleep aid, as well.
I watch it to distract me from the ghosts in my room at night
@@Ty-op5xr they shouldn't be too much a bother, just ask them to be a bit more quiet.
Try SEA
Love these videos narrated by Elmer Fudd.
“It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century...”
The one year war
Mobile Suit Gundam is the best
The best sci-fi mecha anime saga ever!
@@gundamdunham7479 agreed.
Hey! That's the show that got me interested in O'Neill Cylinders.
"Even a very avid gardener really only uses maybe the first meter of dirt below them." As a gardener, this made me laugh out loud. So true! The luxury of planetary mass-we're such a baby intelligence in this big universe.
This is one of those UA-cam channels that makes you feel you've struck gold upon finding them. Been a fan for a while now and seriously look forward to all your videos. Please don't ever stop.
Casey Frey I felt the same way; stumbled randomly apon the space warfare video last summer anf just began bindging from there untill there was only the new videoes left XD
Absolutely agree. I should be writing or cleaning house, but instead I'm watching all of these and taking notes.
Yep ditto!
Just found it right now!!!
I never realized how narrow my view of the possibilities for the future was until I started watching your channel. Thanks for all the awesome videos, and keep it up!
Karl Stucki same
Trueeeeeeeeee e e 3
You mean "nawwow"
Same here
13:30 Regarding L5 vs L4 for O'Neill Cylinder position; could L5 be favorable because it is "chasing" the moon rather than being chased by it, making it easier to move about without compromising orbital position? At L4, a change in velocity moves you closer to or farther from both the earth AND the moon simultaneously, while at L5, change in velocity moves you towards one and away from the other. Seems like a slightly more stable position to me? A larger orbital "bowl" if you will. :-P
So, in other words, build Side 1 and Side 6 first.
nOt move abnout, but help shield from meteors.
I also think it would make transferring supplies from the Moon to the stations more efficient, since they are following it you could simply release the craft destined for the station, slow it down while the station catches up to its position, then match velocity once it's in range. I think this would save on fuel as opposed to accelerating from the Moon 'forward' in order to catch up to any installations at L4, but I'm no scientist so could be completely wrong about that possible advantage.
Nice seeing you here
"That's O'Neill, with two L's!" --Colonel Jack O'Neill
Indeed Danial Jackson
16:30
I just want to say, that all these buildings within cylinder images are wrong.
Assuming that the ends of the cylinders are north and south, the curvature are then east/west. The sides of the buildings facing north/south can indeed be built straight up. The sides facing east/west however, need to take the curvature of the cylinder into account; this will create a subtle A-frame in order to keep the bearing weight going straight down.
Likewise, the floors will have to be dished in design to keep it "flat" lest you have things sliding/rolling to your east/west walls. It's a subtle feature, but a necessary engineering challenge.
At what point would a colony’s rotation be so big that you could build “perfect” buildings and not have to worry about sloped walls or floors?
@@ruphite9521
That would depend on the size of the building. Lets start with height...
If you built your east/west walls parallel to each other, a handful of floors might not be an issue. But going higher, you will get what will effectively be a tornado effect. You might see a straight building, but the cylinder won't, it will be tugging on those upper floors on both sides, making it top heavy; and given that the cylinder is rotating, this will become a serious engineering issue.
If your building is wide, you will have to design the floor to accommodate; this has to be taken into account, won't matter how big your cylinder is. Your inner ear is a pain in the ass, it will tell you that you're walking uphill or downhill even when your eyes are telling you it's flat. A warehouse for instance, if you stack things up to a certain height, they'll topple over because the cylinder is pulling it sideways.
On a big cylinder, you might get away with a two story house with standard blueprints. Much bigger, hmm...
I can foresee major construction companies wandering around with a "shell detector" before breaking ground for any large buildings.
Arthur did a video about colonizing Ceres, and mentioned spilling juice and watching it crawl under the. His context was that that section of the cylinder hadn't accounted for Ceres's own gravity; but if you build a space cylinder, with interior buildings that have flat floors, you're gonna get the same effect. Gawd help you if you live in a condo on the east or west side on any floor above 20, you'll fall outta bed every night. You'll notice the lean of the water in the bathtub, you'll never get a proper bath cuzz you can't fill the tub.
Let's talk about doors. Most doors swing, especially in residential settings. The east/west doors WILL bind on the floor, so unless they're cut up higher to accommodate the floor curve, they will have to slide north/south. Might be a market for sliding doors. Sliding doors on the north/south walls will HAVE to be on curved rails otherwise they will slam shut or conversely, slam open; the higher you go the tighter the curves.
Clint Carpentier weirdly, i can see that becoming something like an attraction for O’Neill cylinder colonies lol, watching water flow away from you under no other effect than the rotation of the colony alone
What about on much more massive colonies, like a Bishop ring, which is 2000km across? My thinking is that, at some point, a single structure is too small and too far from the center of rotation to need to accommodate for rotation, then again i wouldn’t really know
@@ruphite9521
Again, it's a matter of scale. Anything that takes up more than a city block, will need to take it into account. Here on Earth, we don't think about it cuzz... the earth is big; but we level everything.
There was a special track built to test the top speed of the Bugatti. It is perfectly level the whole way. You can't see the finish line from the start line, due to the curvature of the earth. The earth is some 13,000km across.
@@ruphite9521
You know what, you've given me an idea for a book I've been sporadically working on. These engineering issues happen to be something that will be brought up, however, these "typical" buildings aren't a major feature of the books; or rather, they aren't the focus, so it keeps feeling like I'm shoving it into the story just to have it there. But, if I build a small cylinder, say less than 5km across, and build structures like in the photos in this video, purposely flawed, it could be used as a engineering school of what not to do, and as a realtor's example of why "fresh colonists" are paying so much for homes that appear somewhat wonky.
Thank you.
It's so hard to envision a world where living on the planet was an expensive luxery, and *space* is the cheap, pragmatic way of life.
Expensive may not be the problem. Think about how people traveled west in America for more resources then they reached the resources and then just stayed their. Then they have kids amd the kids have no desire to leave. Their would just be no desire to leave and go to earth since you consider that place "home"
Actually, these habitats could be quite luxurious and amenity laden to boot! Imagine a smaller version set up as a luxury housing development or resort in outer space! Swimming pools, bowling alleys, fitness suites, mini golf courses, luxury dwellings and or hotel rooms and suites with views of Earth, Luna, Mars, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its moons or some other major celestial bodies. My guess is that units on habitats orbiting Jupiter and Saturn would command premium price tags!
They'd simply use drones at that point. I assume if you have a good space infrastructure, you have good automation as well.
@Arusiek90 Unfortunately I have to agree that there is a terrible risk if these being turned into a giant playground for some megalomaniacal cult leader. Cults of personality could change tube life forever.
@@blazinchalice that risk exists now. It's no reason not to try.
Dont want to go to mars, but visiting an O'Neal cylinder or larger would be hard to resist. Thank you again Mr Arthur.
Character Analysis: Isaac Arthur
Science: 100 (max)
Futurism: 100 (max)
Awesomeness: Beyond measure
Special abillity: Ultimate video analysis of science and futurism, able to insta kill lower level opponents by sheer mental desintegration
It's a generic leveling system distorted for the purposes of this joke, a lot of games tend to cap stats at 100, I guess a good example would be the Elder Scrolls franchise
I'd be down for some Isaac worshipping.
This seems to turn into a religion :)! I guess not the purpose of this channel :)!
disintegration*
He is to futurism, what the force is to a Jedi. Peace and harmony to all.
all the megastructure videos are really, really awesome. you make an excellent case in each one for the advantages of building and living in space as opposed to colonization.
just generally, thank you so much for all of these. they're so interesting and honestly inspiring. : ]
This is still "colonization", just in a different form.
I've been listening to this channel since I discovered it two weeks ago. I keep it on all day at work instead of the radio. High quality intellectual stimulation. Best content on UA-cam. Outstanding work.
Your channel was the best of its kind on UA-cam from the very beginning, and yet somehow still manages to keep getting better and better all the time. I hope you keep this up for a good long time, and that more people keep discovering you too. Closing in on a quarter of a million subs now too. Wow! You never fail to impress! :-)
Best part of Waking Up, is Arthur Teaching Stuff!
Y'know, you are the first youtube channel I actually FOLLOW, not just sub to and check in on once in a while. I've never really gotten into the whole 'social media' stuff, as I mostly read novels. Love the information and the presentation.
He's one very smart person, the bell is rung and a thumb is always up for Mr. Arthur videos.
I'm glad you brought up Gundam, since the space colonies were actually one of the more interesting parts of the setting. Plenty of animes have giant robots killing one-another, but the space colonies are pretty unique to Gundam in that genre. And sometimes I wish we'd get more of an exploration on the dynamic that they create.
Yes I'm not really all that familiar with the series, as its hard to know where to really start and a lot is fairly weak, but they do seem to give a lot more depth than "giant robots, let's fight!"
I suppose you could say the main time-line was the UC (universal century) timeline, which started with the original Mobile Suit Gundam. That might be a good starting place. Even though it comes off as a little kiddy because of the cast, it does a good job of setting the stage. There's a few spinoffs from that one that were worth watching, Stardust Memories, War in the Pocket, and 08th MS squad. And Zeta Gundam was probably my favorite from the UC timeline.
If you wanted something a little more modern, maybe the 00 series, or Iron Blooded Orphans, although those are definitely influenced by the trends of the times, imo.
All that said, i wouldn't blame you for saying that Gundam isn't really your thing. Anyways, hope this helps.
I've been watching Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin recently and have been really enjoying it. It's not really about giant robots (they generally only show up in flashbacks for the first several episodes) blowing stuff up so much as it's about the backstory to the antagonist in the original series and the political consequences of colonizing the solar system. I'm new to the franchise, and I've found it to be pretty accessible. Granted, it is plagued by melodrama and some eyebrow-raising coincidences, not to mention some really forced elements designed to fit the existing continuity. Even so, if you suspend some disbelief, it's pretty enjoyable.
In any event, I just found your page, Mr. Arthur, and am very much enjoying it. Thank you so much for the work you put into these videos!
Isaac Arthur- If you want to check out Gundam I highly recommend starting with the manga Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, it’s a retelling of the original series, but so much better. I’d also recommend Gundam 0080: War in The Pocket, it’s a short six episode miniseries that 90% takes place in a single O’Neill Cylinder, and I think you’d enjoy how they decided to design the layout of the inside of the colony. Also since it’s a stand alone side-story you really don’t have to know anything before hand to enjoy it.
don't start with origin and just watch the anime in release order
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is one of the best channels on UA-cam!
this is so fascinating. people really dont talk about O'Neill cylinders in science fiction enough... its always terraforming. but this is a WAY more viable option. I also loved that idea of O'Neill cylinder + dyson sphere. Brilliant solution to the energy problem
gundam man gundam
I've just recently been watching your videos and I must say they are impressive. Well done sir.
Well, you got a lot of catch up to do, then! This is the best channel in UA-cam.
Got my drinks and snacks, let's go.
I feel like you missed something with your concept of invading these O'Neil cylinders. First, a deathtrap isn't of much consequence to drones and sabotage and internal divisions could be another non-destructive way to conquer them. There's also the possibility of these cylinders linking up to combine computing power and intelligence to better wage information warfare. In that case the biggest and smartest groups do have a large potential advantage. Large swarms of AI controlled drones with thermal shielding for lasers might be able to board without destroying the place. Gotta say though, loved the video, it's one I've been waiting for.
Internal sabotage is always a seperate issue, as for instance you might bribe/subvert the port security and spill out ten thousand elite shock troops from a grain ship. You can't really virus or psych warfare one though, they can shut off all exterior comms, such a cylinder is basically a giant faraday cage. And drones are just as susceptible to bottlenecks as humans, if you're using swarms of them they probably have them too, though sheer material loss in droves is easier to keep up than people loss, so fair point there. People might get touchy you lost a trillion dollars in drones swarming a place but less so than a million troops.
I suppose that would make drone-swarms on these cylinders used for either something that's more important than cost (like a religious or ideological war) or when the cost is worth it to gain the resources in it, if ever. Although you could recycle the drones to some extent afterward with whatever material isn't flying off too fast to be caught. Thanks for responding, you made some awesome points. I didn't really consider the faraday cage being part of the built-in package. Sneaking in malware through normal trade and communications is the only other thing I could think of and that would probably not be too easy.
build drones with materials from destroyed cylinders?
If you destroy the cylinder you don't need the expendable drone fleets. But any of it that isn't flying off too fast to salvage should be recyclable.
There is also the option of simply _engulfing_ an opponent's entire space structure inside a much larger one. It becomes a sort of Pac-Man game, on a gigantic scale! There they would be cut off from trade, communications, and disposal of waste heat. They either power down everything, or slowly heat up and 'cook in their own juices'. Surrender or Die!
Yes! Just as I mentioned on the ringworlds video the Gundam franchise often uses O'Neill Cylinders as colonies throughout the series
Possibly your best video yet! Thank you. I was in my prime at the time of the birth of O'Neil Cylinders and the L5 Society. There was such optimism at that time and we did what we could to make it happen. Alas... I so appreciate your efforts Isaac to educate and to keep the flame alive!
The new graphics are awesome and well appreciated! You're such a sage, Isaac! I really like your style.
Even UA-cam knows that your video should be first on my recommendations on a Thursday!
Kiran R - Recommendations have gotten better. But -- and maybe it's a particularly hard problem for their fancy machine learning -- I wish their algorithms were able to identify a "wing-nuts" characteristic and exclude it from my recommendations. Because I watch Issac Arthur videos does not mean that I'm interested in "Obama has a secret base on Mars" videos, and the like. :-)
Agreed! I installed a blocker extension just so I could block those channels.
Thank you, this is my favourite space exploration topic. If we manage to build them en masse, we'll be able to live anywhere in space.
Isaac, the confidence that you have for humanity's future always inspires me. Thanks for making great content like always!
That would be weird; looking up in the sky and seeing land
Interesting
These videos are wonderful, oases of reasonable discussion and contemplation in a desert of, mostly, sociopolitical garbage.
Amen brother!
Well....it was.
@@markharmon4963 explain
@@savary5050My comment was a joke that being anti political is political. If a place is natural enough without politics, why introduce it artificially in the guise of being a centrist, apolitical or above it all?
@@markharmon4963 Okay
I have had an idea kicking around for a while about how to besiege a space station other than destroying it:
You could beam lots of radiation at it to heat it up or reduce how effective its cooling systems are. This can be tailored to e.g. prevent heavy industry, or prevent food growing, or actually make people uncomfortable. This would require the cooperation of parties that have more power than the station under siege, but in a 3D arrangement you can have a lot of neighbours to be attacking you.
Unrelated to this: an advantage of planets over space stations is that any air that leaks out of a space station is lost to interplanetary space, but air has a much harder time leaking out of a planet, especially as rock planets are usually less dense than Earth and so would have a higher escape velocity if they had the same surface gravity (OTOH as you say such planets will be super-rare).
It's an option but it would have to be sustained for it not to basically be explosive weapon fire, and they could start countering by mirror-ing up their hull for instance. Same as with taking out their power supplies, to freeze them out, it could work as they might surrender before it got fatal.
Causing a leak would piss off everyone in an Oneal cylinder. If they are under a kilometer of ice it would be hard to measure if you killed anyone. Some are going to be indoors and buildings are not hard to keep independently sealed. The gas that escaped to space could be either the atmosphere or gas from pressurized tanks or cryo-liquid. The fission nuclear reactor waste will continue radiating heat whether or not anyone is alive. You would not know how much of the kilometers of icy mass was liquefied. Punching a hole would not disable surface point defense systems.
On a rocky planet like Earth you get weather everywhere. Radioactive fallout from the attack and/or your own failed reactors will blow around. Cracks in some deep bunkers will allow in flood water. Warm spots with industrial activity or large life-support systems will have convection currents and identifiable infra-red signature. Extremely deep bunkers like Cheyenne mountain complex are in known locations and very difficult to rearrange. You cannot go too deep without hitting magma. In addition to retaining air Earth will also pull molten rock back onto it's surface. "Buried under magma" is fatal for most terrestrial bunker designs.
Isaac Arthur might be worth it, as historically sieges of castles and fortified cities was something that could take months, years, or even longer. It was often simply too bloody to simply take such a fortification so the only option is to siege them. This way they can strong-arm into surrender, or simply prevent them from supplying and supporting your enemies forces.
Radiated heat is infrared light and hence can be reflected and focused. Imagine the heat radiators being in an enclosed chamber which reflects and focuses the light out through a narrow slit in the outer insulating hull. Very little radiated heat from an external sources would get in but the radiated heat would still get out. Heating such aperture heat radiators from the outside would be an ineffective attack.
"8km by 32km for the metric system" Oh, Isaac, merci beaucoup.
Q_Q in these upsetting times having a voice of reason and interest in the hope of humanity and the great wonders of the expanse, reminds me to never stop seeing the beauty of it all.
Hey Isaac, am a big fan of your channel and I just wanted to say it's visionaries/futurists like you that give hope to civilization and the survival of mankind, conversations about the near and far future should take place more often as it gives us much to strive for and something to look forward to, keep making great videos!
Awesome! I was just looking for a good in depth video about O'Neill cylinders yesterday and here you come with one this morning!
Your content and research is second to none. I'm grateful for the effort and insight in which you instill within each video. Please continue the good work. Your dedication to these subjects is much appreciated!
Space Colonies, one of the main themes of the classic Mobile Suite Gundam.
As long this doesn't happen 😅
ua-cam.com/video/dCUSPQGrecA/v-deo.html
This episode is really good. At first I wanted more details (numbers) for the different cylinder designs but overall this is a _really_ good episode. Very well done. Bravo!
The suspension bridge metaphor was really helpful for a layman (me). Thank you.
You get points for mentioning Gundam with me.
YEESSSS!!!! I've been looking forward to this one for a while :D. I've already clicked 'like' before even watching the video. That's how much faith I have in the quality of your content.
I always wait for a video to "grab" me, move me. That happened after the first line again in this one.
Haha I did the same thing so I could watch it later, I just know its going to be good
Great video! And frankly, for me it is one of the best episodes.
Thank you so much for bringing your sense of wonder and imagination to my pathetic dull life.
Glenn Carey hit the gym
Holy crap, I live in an adjacent county from you. Small world.
I look forward to these all week long.
One of the best channels on UA-cam!
I stalk your youtube every Thursday and eagerly await your next topic. Thank you for every video. Keep it up!
Tell me about it. Do you not have notifications on?
Greg, I do have them on but sometimes I get the notification and sometimes I don't. UA-cam AI has run amok. It is like that for all the channels I subscribe and hit the bell on.
Christina Kirschner You can change the settings for notifications. You can set it to get most notifications or all. It's only on the web version, not mobile (or at least not Android).
It is set for all. This is a known "feature" of notification. It happens less for this channel and A LOT more for Philip DeFranco and Jimmy Dore. Oddly, I get every notification for RT. UA-cam be playing with their AI.
Just signed up for Brilliant with your link Arthur - you're the learning trove that just keeps giving! Keep it up we love you and all your dedication!
Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous With Rama
I prefer to call them Clarke Cylinders!
It seems as Issac has re-awoken from his cryonic sleep. I love Arthursday!!!!
Awesome video. I've been fascinated by space habitats since I was a little kid.
"Fictitious or not: it will hold your feet to the ground just fine." yes! I love this sentence.
One thing I wondered when I designed a large O'Neil habitat for a sci-fi RPG is why the atmosphere would spin with the ground. My reference design was 10 km radius and 100 km long, hollowed out of an asteroid. For 1G surface gravity that's one rotation every three and a half minutes, or a tangential velocity of 313 m/s. Left to itself, the interior atmosphere would be static with reference to the outside, which would translate to a continuous speed of sound hurricane racing across the inner surface. Of course, there would be some friction between the surface and the air, reducing the speed somewhat, but we're still most likely talking hurricane weather.
The obvious solution was a set of baffles, five kilometres high, that contained the lower altitude air, forcing it to spin with the surface. Of course it created a transition zone at the tops between the non-rotating core air and the rotating outer air, a series of horizontal tornadoes trailing off the top edges. The whole interior geometry was designed so that the tornadoes formed the core of the air circulation and mixing system, as well as assisting cloud formation.
One of the recreation activities was skydiving in a wingsuit. Since gravity is apparent, and can be partially negated by flying fast enough in the anti-spin direction, you could pretty much adjust your terminal velocity to suit yourself with enough momentum. You landed on the central annular sea using skis or a board.
It's a treat getting to dive deep into this topic. O-cylinders are ubiquitous in Tera forming & colonization discussions. It's ironic that they have not already had their own episode. Thanks for the refresher course!
I expected more Gundam references.
Same
Mercifully, he did not!!
it does have the most realistic ones in pop culture. and some of them do end up looking and functioning the way he said in this video.
Just hope nobody trying to drop Space Colony to Earth because they've want to independent from Earth 😅
Yesh
Mentioning Gundams ....
Finally the Babylon 5 episode , allways wanted to know more !!!
FYI, "Rendezvous With, Rama" is an AWESOME book!! Very beautifully scientific and one of the few works of fiction that deals with inherent (and potentially grave) danger where no one actually gets severely/violently hurt, etc. Sorry if that was a bit of a spoiler, but for those of you more interested in science that a lot of killing and stuff… I think you will appreciate this heads up :-)
PS, the follow-up book To RWR (call it a sequel) for me anyway, was not nearly as good as the first one.
The little cylinders or bubbles in rings around the O'neill cylinder are supposed to be for agriculture. Since i'm a farmer I found these interesting. Each one could have say 1000 hectares of planting area, and the climate would be sutiable for certain crops. The next bubble could be very different, or the same crop at a different stage, to provide a steady food supply. Although insects and microfauna and -flora would be required, pathogenic ones could be excluded. In a plant disease emergency the atmosphere could be evacuated temporarily. Every enviroment of Earth could be duplicated, thus every plant or animal could be adapted, as long as the gravity were simulated, there was enough water and a layer of dirt, which could be created from crushed space rock plus bio-inputs to decompose it. It needen't take too long.
I meant 100 hectares.
Great video.
I tend to imagine that there will be few if any building on an O’Neil cylinder. Rooms will be built into the cylinder itself. The large centre space will be an ornate garden.
I've been reading the Rama series as of late so I was looking forward for this Arthursday in particular. Another reason to love this channel!
On Babylon 5, I always found myself wishing that they would show more of the "outdoor" areas in the open interior. Most scenes took place in rooms and corridors.
Also, how did they have gravity in the CNC room?
Yes I wish there'd been more of that too, but while they were really ahead of their time in CGI use interior shots are harder than exterior for O'Neills. We get that one really nice shot where Sheridan is falling and Koch catches him, but that's about it, and if you watch that high-red these days it doesn't age well.
As to the CNC, I've heard two semi-explanations that I'm not sure are canon. First ones is that it does actually turn just seperatetly, second that ti does but the grav in there is lower, and they just can't practically film that.
Isaac, you are a treasure to our nation and to humanity.
I hope these videos echo through the ages...the only thing holding us back is ourselves, truly
I have been waiting since Monday to try out my Brand new SFIA Coffee Cup ( Thank you Isaac) waiting for the next release in this Epic Series! Now I am set with it full and a Chocolate Brownie so lets get the O'Neill Cylinders rolling!
Everybody gangsta until the Zeon Municipality attacks your o'neil colony
One of my favorite channels to geek out to and made by a fellow Ohioan.
Cost is realative as most of the construction would be automated with materials harvested on the Moon or from a near Earth asteroid. The Stanford Toruses estimated 10 million tons of material with 95% being for the radiation shield. I see the radiation shield being ground up regolith ( Moon dirt ), bounded together with plastic. Plastic can be generated from the dry ice and frozen water that are expected to exist on asteroids, comets and perhaps deep craters on the Moon. Basically the radiation shield could be 3d printed from materials that require little more than a drone bull dozer to harvest and Fischer Tropsche reactor chambers to synthesize the plastic, calcium oxides could also be produced for cement as a binder. Basically, the cost is only for the giant 3d printer, and the drones and would be amortized by the number of habitats produced eventually bringing the costs to near zero.
I see the pressure vessel to be separated from the static radiation shield via halbach arrays of magnets, presumably with zero g it would require minimal magnetic levitation to keep the pressure vessel from touching the radiation shield. Transferring heat from the rotating section to the non rotating section would be a problem, I would suspect having heat radiators on the rotating section may be a necessity but the infrared radiation from these radiators could be directed by parabolic mirrors and lenses to be through minimal apertures thereby avoiding picking up heat from external sources and therefore not be large portrusions, they would literally be red glowing lines in the structure. In theory, such an aperture heat shield could still expel heat directly into the Sun or any other external heat source. If the habitat was part of a generation ship, the heat radiators could be directed to provide a degree of propulsion.
As to a simple way to manufacture the pressure vessel in an automated fashion, what I came up with was the production of wire. It's the simplest machined metal you can produce and should be easily automated. With wire, cables can be wound, again an easily automated process, with cables we could knit a structure together with a loom such as a spool loom which is ideal for producing a tube. Yes, knitted structures have holes but these could be welded, perhaps by thermite reactions by coating the structure with iron oxide and aluminum powders and igniting them, the thermite might even be wound into the cables to begin with. The pressure vessel could be filled with ammonia gas as water ice in space is often ammonia water ice, electric arc lights could separate the nitrogen from the hydrogen in the ammonia gas, the centrifugal force would collect the hydrogen and it could be vented or stored. Any regolith to be used as soil in the habitat would have to be "weathered" in rock tumblers to remove the sharp edges and plants and algae would have to remove the remaining trace ammonia as well as provide oxygen, the CO2 for the plants can be from the dry ice.
As to the sky, MIT once used computers to calculate the diffraction patterns needed to produce holographic images on a crt but it was computationally intensive, however a sunny sky and night sky could be calculated in advance and shown in a cycle perhaps even a few clouds and the occasional passing dragon. Special sequences could be shown on various holidays such as Santa Claus passing overhead, fireworks, shooting stars and auroras, maybe even a second moon. Even a 2d projection would be quite convincing. You could have several layers of such habitats each with a holographic roof so the living space can be very natural rather than city like. The holographic projection might be necessary for some species such as bees which all died off in Biosphere 2, some species may simply require a more natural sky just to survive perhaps to navigate.
Yes, I've given these habitats far too much thought.
Nice hearing about The Expanse again, easily my favorite tv series at the moment. Going to be traveling this summer and I hope to make it through the books in my down time.
Another great episode.
Well, I just came across this and it made me smile. I have an original copy of the High Frontier in my collection. It proved invaluable to me over twenty years ago when my partner Ron Thornton and I designed Babylon 5. Yep, I've got a gold lady holding a sphere for that work. Also an award from the Space Frontier Foundation and I have to say it was the very best part of my career. I mined O'Neal's book and that gave us dimensions, density and rates of rotation for the station. It also gave us guidance so we could inform Strazynski as to technical dialog in the show. Babylon 5 would absolutely work. Our design called for 6 layers below the interior cylinder where the most valuable layer was directly below the internal surface and the slums of the station was directly adjacent to the outside of the hull. We got to have the fun of baking in the culture and social dynamics of living on a structure such as an L5 cylinder. you forgot to mention (although it's obvious) another benefit of this is that manufacturing is done outside the rotating cylinder since there's a lot of benefit to building stuff in a weightless environment. One third of B5 didn't rotate and that where we envisaged the manufacturing area to be. We felt that local fusion power (Although Thorium fluid reactors look interesting, there's a lot of it out there) would actually be better than solar since it would give independence of site . We envisaged a B5 as being able to be cast adrift and operate anywhere in the universe. Although we never got to show it we had designs and early CG for the robotic constructor of the B5 class of stations. It would be essentially a planetoid eater. It would identify a source target and mine, refine, manufacture and assemble an L5 automatically. We worked really hard to observe real physics in the show and I think we made it richer for it. I apologize for the FTL conceit, what can I say, Warner Bros made us do it. I'm now mostly retired but I'm an avid player of Elite Dangerous where I spend my time as an interplanetary bus driver. Elon's got it wrong, we shouldn't be going to Mars, we should be building this, and creating Arc's for humanity.
These videos are just the best.
I read the High Frontieer a few years ago, I stumbled upon it while doing some research and when I started reading it, I couldnt put it down for several days. I'm happy that you covered it specifically. Thank you
Props for mentioning Mobile Suit Gundam & Mass Effect
Yay! I finally caught up! Wait... that means a whole week for a new episode. Aw, man.
It's rough.
O'Neill Cylinders and Ringworlds are the least expensive, most doable, versatile and desirable alternatives for space colonization.
As a business owner, whilst I am still very far from being able to implement something like this, I firmly believe that the aforementioned and a Lunar facility capable of being a hub for asteroid mining (both sending and receiving ships) are the most important projects we should take on before the end of the century. (Not martian colonization)
I agree. Lunar prospecting, for the purpose of colony-building should come first. Perhaps we'll tackle Mercury for power station building after that. Mars's moons (not Mars) make a good place to learn asteroid-mining. It'll be orbital colony life the whole way, until our tech is so cheap and safe that we can visit planetary surfaces for science and leisure (but not permanent colonization).
In gundam unicorn they explaind how humanity built the colony..it was simple and looks doable
It's like giant circle gantry how we built a bridge..they called the snail machine
Megatelescopes? I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Or a colony laser
media.giphy.com/media/XMhsp9JSXUveM/giphy.gif
Me neither
Try simultaneous interferometry across orbital distances. Comparing data from two antennae is almost as good as a single antenna of size =to the distance between them.
We do a lot of good with observations earth-diameter simultaneously and across Earth's orbit around the Sun 6 months later.
How about a big telescope/antennae array at the Earth-Sun L-4 & 5 region. Easy access from here. Probably needs a magsail to occasionally use to change its orbit.
Now have one at the space colony at Mars, and among Jupiter's moons, then Saturn.
Out at 520AU is the focus point of the Sun's gravitational lens, to the region around the center of the galaxy. That needs an O'Neill habitat university city / resort.
Distances to comet-bodies for supply are great, but relative velocities are tiny.
Any of a number of near-term interstellar ship engines which make lousy slow interstellar ships, do just fine. Dyson's "Super" Orion can get up to .1C total velocity change, so that makes a 5million ton hotel-liner that crosses 100AU in 17 days, @ peak midcourse speed.
Dear Dr. I. Arthur, thank you for your notifications about his interesting videos, and I'm really happy when I receive your notification. I have difficulties in the English language but with the translator, I follow every word for all of his explanation as it is really interested in all the projects, programs and future planetary and interplanetary explorations towards the entire Universe. I hope that he will continue incessantly in these videos with new and fascinating documents on the exploration and colonization of space and also with all his new possible initiatives of future spatial and cosmological interest. Thanks again.
@isaacarthur An explanation exists to address your question (posed around 13:22) in this video. O'Neill himself explained that L4 would be a great place for the "Catcher's Mitt" for things launched from Lunar mines because there would necessarily need to be fewer people living there to handle industrial processing, in that somewhat "less safe" environment, before shipping the end-product off to Earth, or wherever it was destined.
Why is it less safe? It precedes the Moon in its orbit, picking up more micrometors as a consequence. The Moon tends to sweep up the small junk in orbit, leaving a "tube" of comparatively clear space in its wake. L5 follows along that orbit, encountering far less debris, making it a safer place to be.
On another note...
Although I don't recall you discussing it at any point, one of my favourite industrial space processes to imagine is foamed metal. In freefall bubbles don't "rise to the surface" so a given sample could be 20-50-80% lighter (for example) but due to the stress transfer from internal spheres of gas, it would be just as strong. The same reasoning applies to the driveshaft of a car-which is hollow-because making it solid doesn't give it significantly more strength and adds unneccessary mass.
Used to build skyscrapers, it could make much taller structures possible. As to *receiving* it here on Earth, foamed steel or aluminium could simply be deorbited into the ocean, where it would happily float until a barge came along to pick it up. Some other examples of industrial manufacture (crystals, drugs, et al) could make a really interesting episode...
Anyway, keep up the good work. I've always enjoyed your channel...
I'm eternally grateful to your Mars collaboration with Curious Droid for introducing your channel into my life! Quality content as ever, and new things to ponder.
Next week GUNDAMS ✌😃👊
It's a joke don't over-analyse it.
Let's make Zeon great again !
You'd need Protoculture.
A full episode for Gundam would be awesome! Universal Century only, though!
syaondri, he mentioned "giant humanoid combat robots" with footage of the life size RX-78 model in Japan at the opening of his Space Warfare video. He said as cool as the idea of giant robots is, it's not feasible.
C. L. Wrong TV Show...
For this1 I realy wish i could spam-hitt the likebotton and have them all count. Been thinking about these cylinders as a favorite passtime before sleep for 25 years now.
hwplugburz so I'm not the only one. LOL
!!!!! Wow space junky support group here. LOL! I do the same, this is the video I've been waiting for, I'm going to watch it like 100 times.
Yep, sounds about right. Started with Tom Swift novels for me.
Remarkable sir, quite remarkable. You really have a gift for this, a first class expositor. We need dreamers, nay, visionaries like you. The ideas might not be all yours, but you cloth them in a beauty and majesty entirely of your own making.
Amazing and enjoyable. You are a treasure of all of UA-cam
NICE love these videos :D
Colonel O'Neill... ?
Just reminding that Stargate SG1 was a great serie.
Reminds me of Babylon 5, based on a O'Neill cylinder.
Here we gooo!!
mikael zazzo Lol, I posted my almost identical comment before seeing yours.
Another awesome episode, Isaac. O'Neill cylinders are the most important under-discussed concept will greatly affect our future.
Isaac, i cant tell you how long i've been waiting for a standalone O'Neill Cylinder video! THANKS!
You're from Ashtabula? I'm from Geauga. Crazy.
Fellow Ohioans! I live just outside of Greenfield, Highland county.
Wayne county here love seeing fellow buckeyes
It's like my O'Neill cylinder is by your O'Neill cylinder!
@Isaac You should try out Ingress. Enlightened. Green team. XD
Sorry, can't help myself.
Butler county here, halfway between cincinnati and dayton
Can we agree now not to build "cities" on the insides of these? Leave them as green space parks, and put the offices and shops below "ground".
The plan was cities near the end caps, with parks in between.
Note that Sunlight can be piped in anywhere, so multiple levels of habitation and office space below "ground" could still have open areas of greenery like huge shopping malls or arboretums do.
If the spin radius is big enough, there might be hardly any difference in G level between the under and ground levels.
They planned if not detail-designed for 4 miles diameter, but that wasn't the biggest that was readily feasible with then-known technology.
Note that long cylinders cannot be doe, because they need the center of mass to be away from the axis, out around the rim. The Kalpana One shorter cylinder was as long as it could be made to still be stable as a simple shell. If multiple levels built of concrete are below-grade adding rim-mass while the center is open sky, that means even longer aspect ratio might be allowed.10+km diameter is feasible, and tens of km long...
HebaruSan there’s no reason that there couldn’t be a better balance struck. There ARE some examples on Earth, we just resist these for greed’s sake or simplicity of understanding.
Right on.. green space is so important!
Let's do both cities and parkland!
Habitats like this are the future of civilization. Break up Venus, Mars and Mercury and you have enough building material to build a vast amount of habitats. Keep Earth intact as a park/museum.
Yeah rotatating habitats are far more practical and cost effective than terraforming an entire planet. Sadly it'll be the only way to ensure the survival of our species into the next millennium.....maybe.
Hey Isaac I just want to say that I discovered you yesterday and I love your videos. I also love your voice; I'm guessing you probably get a lot of flack for it throughout your life but I find it strangely compelling. Keep up the good work, friend.
I've watched this something like 4 times, over the years. Will update this as I come back to it.
Boarding one is likely to take a huge effort, but do you really need to occupy every area to conquer it? Capturing its nuclear reactor/s or by taking over its solar panels should make things easier and seriously limit any resistance.
That's pretty technology dependent and architecture dependent. Each individual home might easily be built to survive vacuum ruptures and would imply a battery at least and possibly a generator, and would depend a lot on how compact power generators are. For that matter the whole station is one giant flywheel you could leach spin off for power. The thing is though, scale-wise you wouldn't be depriving them of air, nor food or water, you'd basically be freezing them out on a timeline dependent on the structure's size vs surface area and proximity to Sol, and you'd wreck the ecosystem inside long before you got the people. It's an avenue that, if practical, does represent a middle ground beyond 'blow place up' though, so good point.
But just a small number of people of the Victory or Death mentality would mean that if you did succeed it taking it, it would blow up around you.
I don't see boarding one to be a problem, you would have a non-rotating zero g docking facility perhaps even a hanger with a plasma atmosphere shield and movement to the rotating section would be by mag Lev pods that dock to the non-rotating section, then separates and race around to match the rotating section to dock to later. Boarding such a habitat could literally just be an elevator or rather turbo elevator to quote Star Trek parlance. Obviously larger cargo pods would be available perhaps even a ring that spins up to dock with the habitat and slows down to dock with the zero g section.
I love oneil cylinders they're not used enough in science fiction
Very true, hopefully that changes
There was a tantalising glimpse of a cylinder interior at the end of the Interstellar movie. Someone should write a novel or series set in an orbital archipelago of habitats with different factions of political and religious groups living in each and maybe a detective who has to infiltrate these to find something/someone.
One of the reasons I love Gundam's UC timelines is the presence of O'neill Cylinders.
Bad Beard Bill As I watch this episode, I keep thinking of Gundam.
This concept is great until the Spacenoids try to declare independence and drop one of these colonies on Australia causing global ecosystem chaos. Damn Zekes...
Not to mention gassing the people they claim to fight for. Screw Zeon and screw the Federation! I'm going to Saturn.
Better yet, they do it twice... plus some large rocks.
Crickie (sp?) Well, there go most of the world's deadliest poisonous snakes!! Dang!!
Then the Federation does the same thing, at least the Titans did.
@@HaloFTW55 Zekes = Space Nazis
Feddies = Space Stalinists
Sorry again about your speech, I'm used to it after watching so many of your videos. You mention artistic license. Compared to so many other peoples videos, it's like they are still using a learners permit. Yours are always top notch. Good work as always!
From engineering perspective, I wonder how would you connect the rotating parts to the not rotating? Huge air proof baerings? It just seems too much of a hassle. In movies and animations you often see a ship with only a part as a rotating habitat, what would be the benefit of the not rotating parts that is worth the trouble of building a constantly moving connector, that probably needs constant maintenence?
Love the channel, been here from almost the beginning. My favorite on youtube and it also beats the high end documentaries, cause you go into details and that's great brain candy and leaves you wondering until the next episode comes along. Awsome work, can't thank you enough for all the hours of education and entertainment. All the best!
The original vid on Rotating Habitats discusses that a bit, I bypassed it here to focus on some other aspects and more on the O'Neill specifically.