Space Colonies: The O'Neill Cylinder

The O'Neill Cylinder is a space colony designed by Gerard K. O'Neill that consists of a cylinder split into 6 parts. 3 of the 6 of these parts are pieces of land. The other 3 are windows. The entire cylinder is facing the sun. The windows have mirrors tilted away from the cylinder at 45 degree angles to let sunlight into the cylinder. The cylinder is always spinning fast enough to create the feeling of 1 g on the inside. Each cylinder can hold about 1,000,000 people sustainably. If these cylinders were more than just designs, I believe that they could have the power to change the world. Thanks, Aidan.

Concept Ships

Concept ships have been around as long as sci-fi has. In every sci-fi movie with a ship, that ship is a concept, whether based on another ship or not. Some are inspired by random, everyday objects, others spurred by the innermost reaches of the designers mind. Until recently those concept ships have mostly been in movies and kids drawings. But now blogs are sprouting up with new ships done digitally on someones home computer. There are other blogs and websites sprouting up to map the progress of sci-fi and create elaborate diagrams comparing different ships. All in all, concept ships are here, and I think that they're going to change the world around us in a big way. Thanks, Aidan.

Star Wars History

Star Wars Episode IV was released in 1977 and millions of people flocked to the theaters to see a movie that was made a long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. They were an instant hit and brought sci-fi to the attention of millions of people, rather than the few who had read the sci-fi books. The Star Wars universe was one filled with strange creatures and exciting adventures. We start by following Princess Leia during her capture by Darth Vader above Tatooine, a desert planet that is mostly bare and supports little life. Princess Leia sends robotic friends R2D2 and C3PO in an escape pod to find Obi Wan Kenobi for help. The adventure continues and the the movie is ended when the rebels destroy an Empire spacebase.

Two other movies are released, one in 1980 (Episode V) and one in 1983 (Episode VI), before filming stopped. Then, in 1999 Episode I was released, closely followed by Episode II in 2002 and Episode III in 2005. Star Wars was insanely popular by this point and about a quarter of the planet had watched at least one of the movies. Star Wars was on everything and everyone knew what it was. Since then Disney has snatched up the enterprise and taken off with it. Many of us Star Wars fans are now waiting with anticipation for the release of Episode VII, directed by JJ Abrams, but we’ll just have to wait for a little while. Thanks, Aidan.