Space habitats

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A space habitat (also called space settlement) is a permanent human settlement in space. Currently (2024), no space habitat has ever been built, and none is expected to be built in the next years, but many space habitat design concepts have been conceived.

Bernal sphere

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A Bernal sphere is a space habitat first proposed in 1929 by John Desmond Bernal, with a spherical shape and a diameter of 16 km, to house a population of 20,000 to 30,000 people. In 1975 and 1976, Gerard K. O'Neill envisioned a modified version of Bernal sphere: Island One (500 m in diameter, with a population of 10,000 people).

Stanford torus

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A Stanford torus is a space habitat, proposed by NASA in 1975, with the shape of a doughnut-shaped ring, that has a 1.8 km diameter, in the version for a 10,000 people population. It can be scaled up to reach a population of up to 140,000 inhabitants.

O'Neill cylinder

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An O'Neill cylinder is a space habitat consisting of two counter-rotating cylinders, five miles (8.0 km) in diameter and capable of being scaled up to twenty miles (32 km) long. An outer agricultural ring, twenty miles (32 km) in diameter, rotates at a different speed to support farming. It was proposed by American physicist Gerard K. O'Neill (who initially named it as Island Three) in 1976. A space habitat (of extraterrestrial construction) similar to O'Neill cylinder in some respects, but different in many others, was included in Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama.

Other

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