Someone sent me this interesting mega-scale space colony image:
Now, can anyone tell me what kind of megastructure would this be? I’m thinking that this is either O’Neil Cylinder, a Stanford Taurus or a Topopolis.
Actually, both O’Neil Cylinder and Topopolis rotate around their own axis, so all wall space could be used for habitation. Only the Stanford Taurus rotates around fixed point forcing the kind of living space arrangement that is visible in the picture.
[tags]science fiction, megastructures, o’neils cylinder, stanford taurus,topopolis[/tags]
See Ringworld by Larry Niven.
http://www.amazon.com/Ringworld-S-F-Masterworks-S-Larry-Niven/dp/05750 77026/ref=pd_bbs_9/105-9411718-9712434?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188077029& sr=8-9#citing
Never read that book. I probably should. :) Thanks!
it looks like a Stanford Torus from its inner shape, a O’Neil Cylinder is much bigger, and a Ringworld as someone said is even more bigger and would not need a roof, dunno bout the last one.
Stanford Torus without any doubt.
O’neill cylinder is …. a long cylinder.
A ring World would be soooooooooooooooooo big, that you wouldn’t even notice it’s round, and yeah you could not need the roof since you would want to see the sun.
The problem with that picture, it’s that because of the perspective, the building also look to be aligned to a rotation axis made for O’neil structure.
but I think it’s just an illusion.
The picture was selected by the National Space Society for their 2008 calendar
http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/2008/gallery.htm ==>
http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/abalakin.htm
by Alexander Preuss
http://www.abalakin.de/
Category: Orbital Settlements
Grand Prize Winner for 2008 Calendar
Description: Abalakin is a giant torus-shaped space habitat with artificial gravity produced by rotation . . .