Island One - Settlements in Space

A friend of mine by the name of Adam Manning, posted a short introductory film about the Island One space settlement concept on YouTube. This conceptual space colony is also referred to as a Bernal Sphere, after the space visionary James Desmond Bernal, who first proposed it back in 1929 in his book “The World, the Flesh and the Devil”.

This ideal was later championed by Gerard K. O'Neill in his book “The High Frontier.” This presentation is a concise, yet very informative look at O’Neil’s central ideas relating to the settlement and colonization of space and what that might mean for humanity.

Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision has long suffered years of neglected and deserves to be reexamined by a new generation of space policy makers.

There is much in O’Neil’s High Frontier vision that can help us take the first crucial steps towards creating a space program which is both economical sustainable and politically justifiable in the short term and that will facilitate the long term goal of creating a spacefaring civilization.

O’Neil provided a unifying vision in the 1970s that demonstrated convincingly and clearly, that the resources of the solar system can indeed be incorporated into the economic sphere of human existence. And, that any serious discussion concerning humanity’s long term sustainable future here on Earth must look towards a future where people made a home for themselves amongst the stars.

Island One - Settlements in Space


Video Credits:
Presented by Max Emerson
Written by Adam Manning
With thanks to Aron Sora

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