space habitats

> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "hitssquad" wrote:
> > --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Joe Strout wrote:
> > > On 6/14/12 7:20 PM, joe wrote:
> > > > Those Barnal spheres are so 1950's.
> > >(Actually 1970s
> >
> > Or 1920's: "first proposed in 1929 by John Desmond Bernal."
>
> Perhaps earlier still -- Tsiolkovsky.

This is reminding me of the posting where somebody made reference to Bernal and Tsiolkovsky, and asked if O'Neill hadn't simply revived an older idea. My comment was: "Apparently there's nothing new under the sun... nor in an independent orbit about it!"

I went on to mention that of course O'Neill did have his ideas independently. But on learning of the works of Tsiolkovsky, Bernal, and Dandridge Cole, he honored their earlier work by naming spaceships and habitat designs after them in THF.

When you look at all the thinking being done today about how can we live on another planet (mostly Mars), I still think O'Neill gets good marks for creative, original thinking. He very much thought outside of the box, in a way even many present space thinkers fail to do.

Regards,

Mike Combs