New documentary sheds light on the visionary behind space colonization



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Black and white photograph of a teacher giving a lecture, leaning casually over his desk.
Enlarge / Physicist Gerry O’Neill popularized the notion of space regulation.

A new film brings to life the legacy of a physicist who played an influential – but largely unrecognized – role in shaping the vision for space colonization.

The documentary The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O’Neill takes its name from the 1977 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space written by Gerard K. O’Neill, physicist at Princeton University. The movie will be released on April 17th and it’s a great movie for those looking to better understand the future humans might have in space.

O’Neill popularized the idea of ​​not only regulating space, but doing so in free space rather than on the surface of other planets or moons. His ideas spilled over into the space enthusiast community at a time when NASA was about to launch its space shuttle, which first flew in 1981. NASA had sold the vehicle as offering frequent access. and low cost to space. It was the kind of transportation system that allowed visionaries like O’Neill to think about what humans could do in space if getting there was cheaper.

The concept of “O’Neill cylinders” began with a question he asked in his physics classes at Princeton: “Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding industrial civilization?” It turned out that after their analysis, the answer was no. Eventually, O’Neill and his students came up with the idea of ​​floating, rotating cylindrical space colonies that could have access to sufficient solar power.

Much of the material needed to build these massive cylinders was available on the Moon, in the form of oxygen, silicon, and aluminum locked in moon rocks, as well as on asteroids. O’Neill and other physicists developed the concept of a “mass conductor” to eject material from the surface of the moon into lunar orbit, where it could be processed. It was a great sight, and from a purely physical point of view, nothing was magic.

Space regulations

One of O’Neill’s most important legacies is the rationale for space colonization he laid out, explaining why humans should venture out of Earth and attempt to find resources and new places to live.

“I see in front of us two basic choices,” says O’Neill, in archive footage. “There may be more wars, more restrictions on individual freedom, as we fight in what must be a zero-sum game over our planet’s resources. Or, a new flowering of opportunity, with many wealth for all mankind and the arts, as we open a new frontier in space with more than a thousand times the area and resources of planet Earth. “

Official trailer for The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O’Neill.

O’Neill spawned a generation of true believers – nicknamed “Gerry’s Children” – who formed organizations like the L-5 Society and made his point. As someone who grew up a generation after O’Neill laid out his ideas, it was wonderful to see some of the people appear in the film who deeply influenced my thinking and served as mentors: people like Rick Tumlinson, Lori Garver, James Muncy, Jeff Manber and many more. The film offered a deeper understanding of where their passion for space colonization was ignited.

Of course, none of O’Neill’s ambitions came to fruition. The Space Shuttle, while allowing NASA to ultimately build the International Space Station and deploy critical instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, has never lived up to its billing. The vehicle flew, on average, less than five times a year. And its costs per flight over the life of the program were about $ 1.5 billion per mission. It was not a transportation system that allowed humans to penetrate deeper into the cosmos, access its resources, and create economic activity.

Back to the future

O’Neill died of leukemia in 1992 at the age of 65. Despite the lack of progress towards his goals, those he influenced advanced his vision. Today, three decades after his death, we are perhaps taking the first steps towards the future he sketched.

Indeed, Elon Musk, with SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, with Blue Origin, have both dedicated their companies to developing low-cost access to space through reusable rockets. Musk was not directly influenced by O’Neill and strongly believes that Mars offers humanity the best place to start settling in other worlds. Bezos, however, is a follower of O’Neill.

Bezos said he had read The high frontier several times in high school and attended Princeton University from the fall of 1982. Although Bezos never took a physics class at O’Neill, he attended his open seminars on campus.

In 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin. He described his efforts to create a road to space as “the most important work” that he did in his lifetime. In 2019, when Bezos unveiled the full scope of his vision, the O’Neill cylinders were at the center of what he was trying to accomplish. “You don’t choose your passions – your passions choose you,” he said at the time. Speaking about life in these cylinders, Bezos added, “This is Maui at its best day of the year. No rain. No earthquake. People are going to want to live here.” And when they need it, he said, they could easily return to Earth.

So far, Musk has moved much faster to Mars than Bezos has moved to the O’Neill cylinders. But both are working towards the larger goal of spreading humanity beyond Earth, harnessing the resources of the solar system, and expanding our sphere of economic activity. Each is working on space colonization in their own way and contributing to the essential first step in affordable space transportation systems.

Another of O’Neill’s loyalists is Dylan Taylor, 50. After making his mark in real estate, Taylor became an angel investor in new spaces. Seeking to share O’Neill’s story with a new generation, he led the development of this documentary film and supported it financially. Now managing director of Voyager Space Holdings, Taylor seeks to create a nucleus of space companies to develop space sustainably and take new steps on the high frontier. Both efforts are tributes to O’Neill.

There will be a free live premiere of The high frontier April 17 – for details see here. From the following day, it will be available as video on demand on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, Fandango, and Microsoft Stream.

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