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The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space

The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space
The High Frontier cover.jpg
First edition cover
Author Gerard K. O'Neill
Cover artist Rick Guidice
Country United States
Subject Space colonization
Publisher William Morrow and Company
Publication date
1977
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 288 pp (first edition)
ISBN
OCLC 2388134
609/.99
LC Class TL795.7 .O53 1977

The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space is a 1976 book by Gerard K. O'Neill, a road map for what the United States might do in outer space after the Apollo program, the drive to place a man on the Moon and beyond. It envisions large manned habitats in the Earth-Moon system, especially near stable Lagrangian points. Three designs are proposed: Island one (a modified Bernal sphere), Island two (a Stanford torus), and Island 3, two O'Neill cylinders. These would be constructed using raw materials from the lunar surface launched into space using a mass driver and from near-Earth asteroids. The habitats were to spin for simulated gravity and be illuminated and powered by the sun. Solar power satellites were proposed as a possible industry to support the habitats.

The book won the 1977 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science.

The book featured impressions of life in outer space by a number of artists including Don Davis, Rick Guidice, and Chesley Bonestell.

O'Neill cylinders

Interior of an O'Neill cylinder

Interior of an O'Neill cylinder

Solar eclipse inside an O'Neill cylinder

Interior of a Bernal sphere

Cutaway of a Bernal sphere

Exterior of a Bernal sphere

Exterior of a Bernal sphere

Agricultural module of a Bernal sphere

The Stanford torus and its mirror

Stanford torus under construction

Stanford torus cutaway view

Interior of a Stanford torus

Lunar mass driver powered by solar panels.

Solar power satellite built from an asteroid with a Bernal sphere in the bottom right corner.


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