A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made. These have been converted to jpegs and are available as thumbnails, quarter page, full screen and publication quality images.
12 thoughts on “Space colony artwork – 1970”
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That’s the trouble with futuristic predictions:
We always figure there’s going to be nothing to DO.
It was a fantastic concept, and to a naive 15-y-o in Cornfield Country, within the realm of possibility. After all, in my short lifetime, we had gone from flying airplanes across the oceans on schedule to going to the Moon and back.
I looked at these drawings and thought “When will we?”
Fast-forward almost 40 years, and now I look at these drawings and wonder what happened? Did the technology not keep pace with the concept? Did the money not appear? was the cost to great? Did Science get derailed by the same popular superstitions that bankrupted the Dover school board?
And now, I notice all the humans depicted in these drawings are WHITE. I missed that when I was a kid.
I read how NASA wants to go back to the Moon,and then BEYOND. and I read the news, and I see the grinding poverty, the disease, religious oppression, greed, and war, and now I think “How could we even THINK about doing this?”
@John from Indiana – you fool, your attitude now is what meant we never got these things. If more people had demanded them, they’d be there by now. Instead, people were worried about the price of gas, feeling guilty for the billions starving all over the world.
If even only Island One was built [a small sphere, about 500m across] it could manufacture solar power satellites that can give _everyone_ on earth more electrical power than they know what to do with. Power for fertilizer generation, desalination stations, transport…
These images, while beautiful, often upset me – because they seem like purest fantasy now. 30 years ago they were within reach of becoming shining reality…
There’s still a chance, though – shout out, demand they do it, demand solar power satellites and more. Doesn’t anyone but me want the future to be more than just the way it was before this stupid ‘credit crunch’?
Has piles of wonderful art at his site http://www.mccallstudios.com/
Now you can put a name with these classic, still-powerful images.
Robert real documation site http://www.securitysoft.org
My uncle was part of the Space Program and corresponded with his brother, blinded by diabetes, in the 1960’s via reel-to-reel tape. I came across one of those tapes that describes the Moon Shot in extreme detail, but was recorded in March of 1966. Read more about it and download the link to the audio file here: http://tinyurl.com/7j7njt
Kevin Trotman