GURPS O'Neill Cylinder Design

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It makes it clearer that you're building apartment complexes in space rather than whole suburbs though. That seems so much less revolutionary. Probably also that your stucture's inhabitants are temporary too. Neither are what the O'Neill people want.

One problem with the whole concept for fictional/gaming purposes is 'why'. That is, why would whoever is putting up the money build this immense flying parkland, when high-density urban is more cost efficient? It's possible to think of reasons, but they're likely to involve a vastly wealthier and more advanced society than most of the O'Neil enthusiasts envision.

The classic O'Neil concept of the habitats building power satellites to pay for themselves is of course nonsensical. Solar power sats probably don't make sense on their own terms, and if you're going to build them, you don't need O'Neil habs, you need the space equivalent of a line shack or an oil rig. For comparison, you don't build a chain of mansions on site if you're starting a mine in a remote region, you build efficient living modules or something along those lines, if the workers are lucky, something less if they're not. It's cheaper.