Space Colonies
Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:47 amNASA artwork from late 70's
O'Neil Cylinders, Stanford Toroidal stations, Bernal Spheres, and some more generic orbital wheels - a nice selection. provides a very good explanation of some of the physics and design considerations involved in these sorts of structures.
I was thinking of using a few of these images when I was writing my never completed cyberpunk game. In game the design was three doughnut shaped habitation rings on one long central shaft for micro-g manufacturing and isolation of the fission plants. Non of the actual designs conform to that, and I'm not good enough with photo-shop to make such an image, but it would allow for some very different environments to clash in.
For the record, I am very disappointed that none of of these exist yet. We can probably blame micro-electronics for making satellites a more viable option than manned observation platforms, but it feels a little silly to complain about integrated circuits on the internet.