Islands in Space book (was Rama)

> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:12:47 -0600
> From: "Dave Logsdon"
> Subject: RE: Rama
>
> From: Brett Sargeant [mailto:bsarge@...]
>
> "It is based on an O'Neill Cylinder."
>
> That was my assumption too, until I realized that Clarke's book
> was copyrighted in `73, three years before O'Neill's! Perhaps,
> some of O'Neill's students read Clarke, and borrowed some ideas?
> Either way, the design is sound, but it does cause one furiously
> to wonder...
>
> I'm not saying we need to start calling the habitats `Clarkes',
> but if this checks out, I might have to start a campaign to make
> sure the first one is named after the correct person. Hmmm...

It goes back at least as far as 1964. Read "Islands in Space: the
Challenge of the Planetoids" by Dandridge M. Cole and Donald W. Cox.
In this book, there is a chapter called "Hollowed-Out Worlds" devoted
to this very topic.

And in the picture section of that book there is a great painting of a
cylinder world habitat. Someone really should scan this picture and
put it in the pictures section of the Yahoo spacesettlers site.

This book was ahead of its time and probably influenced many of the
ideas that later went into the L5 Society and others. I recommend it;
it can probably be found at some of the larger libraries.