Retrofuturist Artwork Of Space Colonies: NASA’s Guide To Future Living

A guide to future living has been envisioned by NASA as shown in a retrofuturist artwork featuring the unusual heights of Don Davis and Rick Guidice.  Both were contracted by the space agency in 1975 to demonstrate the possible space colonies.

The guide to future living designs originated from the idea of a team at the NASA Ames Research Center led by Princeton professor Gerard O'Neill. They were given grants by the space agency to conduct a 10-week study about the off-world structures.  O'Neill, along with researchers, architects, scientists and engineers examined if his concepts were feasible, which eventually drew up three ideas to introduce to  NASA - the Toroidal Colony, the Cylindrical Colony and the Bernal Sphere.

Each colony used centrifugal force to produce artificial gravity, shown in the circular designs and enormous solar arrays to power the rotation. Inside the verdant landscapes is a pleasant living in Modernist homes. The Bauhaus structures, on the other hand, appeared among forests and lakes; somewhere else, terracotta patios and whitewashed villas brought Ionian appeal to the cold vacuum of space.

The Cylindrical Colony had the largest concept, with the potential to accommodate a million people at a time. They were all like the Earth, but turned inside out. According to reports, O'Neil assumed that with the proper technological developments, construction will begin in 1990. But mankind's progress of the space programs must have disappointed O'Neill, who passed away in 1992, according to M2Now

After 40 years, the designs of O'Neill continue to interest and inspire several derivatives like the Cooper Station, a satellite featured in the film "Interstellar" which is the concised version of the Cylinder Colony that was eventually named "O'Neill Cylinder".

O'Neill's concept of the guide to future living through the illustration of his colonies may take centuries more before it can ever be constructed in space. Right now, the images of what could have been will linger on everyone's mind, including the thought of the possibility of things that may come.