Leary published Terra II, the first "it's feasible" book, in the Spring of "1974" , before O'Neill's first non-fiction possibilty article in August 1974. Leary did it out of prison...called Terra II. The main idea is to get backup copies of mini-Earths in orbit around the Sun. Or just SpaceColony Starships to move around in. O'Neill established that the surface of planets is a lousy place for industrial civilization. Better to be at L-5 where un-recyclable pollution can be dropped into the Sun for plasma recycling...
Sample 1977 page 3 from Exo-PsYchoLogic by JJ>>
http://livedigital.com/content/417428/u329
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/CoEvolutionBook/
http://www.islandone.org/Settlements/
Paul Kanter/Jefferson StarShip! (get it! - Star Ships!!) Tim Leary, Gerald O'Neill, L-5 Society, CoEvolution Quartetly, Stewart Brand called for the same in early 1970's
"Hawking: Man must live on new planets or die out," he warns.
Er, nice one. But easier said than done, eh, Steve?
"Science fiction" must become "science fact", declaims the revered prof, because Earth is at grave risk of going kaput, due to disasters "such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of".
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&q=Hawking&btnG=Search+News
In 1969, O'Neill's students confronted him with his profession's entanglement with the military-industrial complex, atomic weaponry, and environmental destruction. In response O'Neill designed a course—"Physics 103"—that aimed at studying physics that could produce peaceful solutions to the world's problems. Soon the students were engaged in calculating what it would take to build a colony in space. This colony was supposed to be free of military purpose, in ecological harmony, without atomic pollution or other suspicious industrial activities, and helpful to the well-being of the earth (including the needs of the inner cities). This assignment resulted in two articles that appeared in Nature and Physics Today in 1974. "Careful engineering and cost analysis shows we can build pleasant, self-sufficient dwelling places in space within the next two decades, solving many of Earth's problems," O'Neill argued. The idea was to use material resources on the moon to fabricate a grand space station located at one of the points of gravitational equilibrium between the moon and the earth. The station was to be complete with mountains, lakes, and small-town communities. Moving heavy manufacturing to the moon could relieve the earth from polluting industries, and a grand space station could ease population pressure. Such a space station, O'Neill argued, was "likely to encourage self-sufficiency, small-scale governmental units, cultural diversity and high degree of independence." It was to be an Arcadian ecological community rooted in managerial principles.39 | 36 |
| The articles raised eyebrows among physicists. According to O'Neill, however, the space colony was not a far-fetched idea in view of the Spacelab program NASA successfully carried out in three missions between 1973 and 1974. Thanks to a series of public appearances, O'Neill soon became a physics celebrity, receiving "thousands of letters" from the broader public about the space colony. The fact that he was interviewed in Penthouse may indicate that men were especially fascinated (see Fig. 3).40 |
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/eh/10.2/anker.html
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