Please credit photo to NASA Ames Home Page. Please credit photo to NASA Ames Home Page. Please credit photo to NASA Ames Home Page. Please credit photo to NASA Ames Home Page. In the 1976 NASA Study on Space Manufacturing, just completed, habitats of this kind, efficient in their use of materials and structurally strong, are thought of as possible next steps beyond earlier, transitional structures of a more utilitarian design.
Natural sunshine is brought inside through external mirrors.
For the short distances within the space-habitat, automobiles would be unnecessary, and transport would be on foot or bicycle. A climb for the equator past the small villages on the hillsides, to the rotation axis where gravity would be zero, would take about 20 minutes. A corridor at the axis would permit floating in zero-gravity out to the agricultural areas, the observatories, the docking ports, and the industries. In the economics of space-manufacturing, the provision of attractive living areas of this kind appears to be worthwhile relatively early in the program, because families so located could remain for several years at a time, rather than coming for short tours of duty at high cost for transportation.