NASA's psychodelic concepts from the 1970's. Space colony housing units inside a huge mothership (Click Image To Enlarge)
A REMINDER THAT NASA NEEDS TO REMEMBER THE POWERFUL FORCE OF CONCEPTUAL DESIGN.
Our excitement for space didn’t end when we put a man on the moon in the 1960s. In the late 1970s, we were still obsessed with the voids beyond our atmosphere. A little film called Star Wars came out, of course, but we also had the rise of Carl Sagan as a household name. He was producing a nonfiction series called Cosmos that would be seen by 500 million people worldwide and become the most successful series in PBS history.
Unsurprisingly, it was a time when NASA, too, dreamed on the epic scale.
NASA'S psychedlic concepts from the 1970's. Huge mothership orbits in outerspace (Click Image To Enlarge)
Amongst their many projects at the time, NASA Ames proposed massive spaceships that would orbit communities of 10,000 people around the earth--planned communities in space--and they commissioned a series fantastical artistic renderings of the vision. “These orbital space settlements could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth,” describes Al Globus, Senior Research Associate for NASA Ames.
NASA's psychedelic concepts from the 1970's. Huge mothership in the shape of a ferris wheel that spins creating artificial gravity (Click Image To Enlarge)
The concepts look like America’s post-WWII suburban settlements popped LSD, as if every manicured bush is humming the national anthem while it soars through the galaxy on a psychedelic rainbow. Today, we’re convincing millionaires to book a glorified bus trip into the closest edge of space. In the 1970s, the same efforts could have leased them a two-bed, two-bath condo in the stars, complete with integrated Hi-Fi.
NASA's psychedelic concepts from the 1970's. Inside a huge space colony mothership shows a landscape enclosed in glass (Click Image To Enlarge)
As of late, NASA has lost something that’s a lot bigger than their funding--and a skeptic might say it’s the very reason they’ve lost their funding. Case in point: These jaw-dropping human colony concepts are now outsourced to students.
While our Mars rovers and the newly modified Hubble telescope have represented some of the greatest scientific accomplishments in human history, when is the last time that the common person was inspired by the vision and scope of the space program? When is the last time we got a wide-eyed, multicolor explosion of ideas from some of the greatest thinkers in the world pondering the largest problems in the universe? When is the last time physicists painted a picture of the future that they’d otherwise only glimpse in their mind’s eye?
NASA's psychedelic concepts from the 1970's. Scene of a space colony mothership in space complete with artificial landscapes that include hills, lakes, rivers, roads and bridges like on Earth (Click Image To Enlarge
Though they’re often silly in retrospect, concept designs are a powerful tool. They’re lucid dreaming that the public gets to share in. NASA, sometimes it’s worth coming down from orbit, just to remind us all how very, very high you’re trying to fly.
COMMENTARY: It's incredible just how much imagination and forward thinking early NASA scientists had about the future of space. The idea that humans would live in space in these humongous motherships or space colonies with lakes, rivers, bridges, mountains, flora and vegetation just like on mother Earth has yet to be realized. We're probably at least 100 years away from this even today. However, given the explosion in population on Earth and predictions of shortages of water and food, and mass famine caused by rising termperatures and sea levels due to due to global warming, probably means we should be planning on living in space. Perhaps we should consider living on the Moon or even on Mars. It's either this or moving our population centers underground.
Courtesy of an article dated April 27, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design
Wow... Fascinating that NASA’S psychedelic concept! I think that concept is wholly another planet arena and what would be new living arena. Thanks!
Posted by: Steve | 07/30/2012 at 02:44 AM
Wow... Fascinating that NASA’S psychedelic concept! I think that concept is wholly another planet arena and what would be new living arena. Thanks!
Posted by: Steve waugh | 07/22/2012 at 11:55 PM
Wow... Fascinating that NASA’S psychedelic concept! I think that concept is wholly another planet arena and what would be new living arena. Thanks!
Posted by: Steve waugh | 07/22/2012 at 11:23 PM
The support team comes through again, even when we make stupid mistakes, and at the oddest of hours. As always
Posted by: casino bet | 04/30/2012 at 02:38 PM