For as long as overpopulation of Earth has been a concern, space colonies have been punted as the solution. These illustrations, developed by Nasa's Ames Research Center and illustrated by Don Davis and Rick Guidice, depict how setting up home in space might have looked, had the mindset (and funding) that brought us the Apollo missions continued.
The illustrations were created by Nasa's team in the 70s to explore what Earth-orbit-based living might look like, if technological progress continued and resource extraction from mining the Moon or nearby asteroids became a reality.
Earlier in the century, John Desmond Bernal envisioned a space colony 16km in diameter that could house 20,000 to 30,000 people. Although the design gave little scientific description, it pre-empted the model on which the Stanford Nasa summer school would develop the spherical Island Onecolony, in which humans would live around the equator.
Along with physicist Gerard O'Neill, the team also designed Island Three - a counter-rotating dual-cylinder colony that created its own gravity. In 1975, as well as those models, they also envisioned a hubcap-shaped rotating habitat called the Stanford Torus (or Island Two) that would be able to house 140,000 people.
The three stations remain icons of speculative space design, but they're no closer to reality now than when they were conceived. Transport of materials, weightlessness, radiation and life support still pose a few minor challenges (not to mention the huge expense). However, with Nasa planning to travel to Mars in the 2030s, and firms such as Elon Musk's SpaceX developing re-usable rockets, space colonies might not remain out of this world.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
