3 ms·

Images here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304015426/https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/70sArtHiRes/70sArt/art.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160304015426/h

Images here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304015426/https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/70sArtHiRes/70sArt/art.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160304015426/https://settlemen... And here: https://space.nss.org/color-plates-from-colonies-in-space/ https://space.nss.org/color-plates-from-colonies-in-space/

pkdpic 5y ago
Oh my gosh these are incredible, and commissioned by NASA no less. Ive run across one or two of these Don Davis renderings randomly, its so nice to finally know the artist and the original context!
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Those images pretty much all trace to the work of Gerard K. O'Neill, a physist who began looking at the question of space colonisation in the late 1960s / early 1970s, notably at Princeton University, where he'd asked the question of where best to attempt space colonisation, notably contrasting planetary (or lunar) surfaces with orbiting space platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill The background is discussed in T.A. Heppenheimer's 1977 book Colonies in Space, chapter 2: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-2-our-life-in-space/ https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-2-our-life-i... O'Neill himself published The High Frontier in 1976. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colon... https://archive.org/details/highfrontierhuma0000onei https://archive.org/details/highfrontierhuma0000onei (for borrowing, not download) LibGen: http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3CA0A35BFC63B8F53169890549DB7D89 http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3CA0A35BFC63B8F531698905... Both books include many of these specific images. Much of that work was also taken up under the L5 Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society Though these were pretty widely distributed and publicised at the time, they were not the first realistic or scientific impressions of space colonisation. See for example Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) which, though science fiction, tended to apply much of the best current technical and scientific knowledge and ideas.

pkdpic 5y ago

Oh my gosh these are incredible, and commissioned by NASA no less. Ive run across one or two of these Don Davis renderings randomly, its so nice to finally know the artist and the original context!

dredmorbius 5y ago
Those images pretty much all trace to the work of Gerard K. O'Neill, a physist who began looking at the question of space colonisation in the late 1960s / early 1970s, notably at Princeton University, where he'd asked the question of where best to attempt space colonisation, notably contrasting planetary (or lunar) surfaces with orbiting space platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill The background is discussed in T.A. Heppenheimer's 1977 book Colonies in Space, chapter 2: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-2-our-life-in-space/ https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-2-our-life-i... O'Neill himself published The High Frontier in 1976. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colon... https://archive.org/details/highfrontierhuma0000onei https://archive.org/details/highfrontierhuma0000onei (for borrowing, not download) LibGen: http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3CA0A35BFC63B8F53169890549DB7D89 http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3CA0A35BFC63B8F531698905... Both books include many of these specific images. Much of that work was also taken up under the L5 Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society Though these were pretty widely distributed and publicised at the time, they were not the first realistic or scientific impressions of space colonisation. See for example Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) which, though science fiction, tended to apply much of the best current technical and scientific knowledge and ideas.