One man's incredible plan for humanity to migrate into space

from Boing Boing




In the early 1970s, Princeton University physicist Gerard O’Neill became a space activist touting plans to build human colonies in outer space. He argued that humans could escape (while helping alleviate) the environmental damage we are causing on Earth by migrating to space habitats housed in cylinders that would be suspended 250,000 miles from Earth at LaGrange Point 5, a spot where the gravitational forces enable objects to just hang there. O'Neill's ideas, while controversial, were mostly sound from a scientific and engineering perspective.

After the New York Times published a front page article about O'Neill, he became a media sensation and quickly developed a very vocal following of space geeks, (some) environmentalists, heads, and future-minded scientists. NASA even jumped in, supporting studies based on O'Neill's research and commissioning the incredible illustrations seen here. O'Neill's specific concepts influenced countless science fiction books and movies and were the seed of bOING bOING patron saint Timothy Leary's plan for humanity's future, SMI2LE (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension.)

His book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space is still in-print and captures the wonder and sense of possibility that permeated our culture after the first moon landing and into the 1970s. It's my hope that today's myriad private efforts to make space accessible will re-ignite that desire in everyone to explore and experience what lies beyond our home planet.

The fantastic podcast 99% Invisible told O'Neill's story in an episode titled "Home on Lagrange":

Abandoned hotels in the Egyptian desert may as well be on another planet [or a James Bond movie set!]

from Dangerous Minds:

 

The word ruins ordinarily conveys a connotation of scarcely delineated brick walls and rubble dating back hundreds if not thousands of years, but the work of German artists Sabine Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche serves as a powerful reminder that unfortunate events, especially economic ones, can easily create ruins of much more recent vintage almost anywhere.

Haubitz and Zoche’s 2006 book Sinai Hotels vividly documents hotel projects in the Egyptian desert that were commenced in good faith but then, for reasons unknown, were abandoned. In virtually every case, the failed investment projects resulted in concrete foundations but remarkably little else, stranded in an otherwise vacant landscape of sand.

Caitlin Peterson has written that the buildings in the series

 

have proven to be the ruins left by misinvestment in state-funded tourism projects. The sculptural shells point to one of the consequences of a tourist industry that encourages uncontrolled urban development of whole landscapes and, against the backdrop of current political developments, amounts to a socio-political fuse. In their promise of holiday idylls, the names of hotel chains, which the artists have adopted for their titles, jar with discrepancy against the abandoned concrete skeletons in the pictures.

 

As John Coulthart astutely observed, the images have a distinctively Ballardian quality, suggesting a peculiarly modern form of decay.

Quite right—the pictures evoke any number of notable Ballard volumes—Concrete Island, Vermilion Sands, High-Rise......

 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

 

Stunning mosque ceilings highlight the intricate beauty of Islamic architecture

from our friend Tara McGinley at Dangerous Minds

Fatima Masumeh Shrine, Qom, Iran

 

There are really no words to describe the beautiful intricate geometric forms and explosion of colors found on mosque ceilings found in the Arab world and elsewhere. But why bother trying to describe such totally mind-melting eye candy, anyway? I’m left speechless. Just look…

If you’re interested in a high resolution of any of these photos, you can download ‘em here.

Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

 



Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

 



Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

 



Vakil Mosque, Shiraz

 



Shah Mosque , Isfahan, Iran

 



Fatima Masumeh Shrine, Qom, Iran

 



Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

 



Jalil Khayat Mosque, Arbil, Iraq

 



Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Abu Dhabi, UAE

 



Grand Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

 



Bahud-Din Naqshband Mausoleum, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

 



Jame Mosque of Yazd, Iran

 



Iranian Mosque

 



Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, Iran

 



Ali Ibn Hazem Holly Shrine, Shiraz, Iran

 



Tori Kori Madrasah, Samarkand

 

via FF Studio

Holy rollers: Church transformed into psychedelic skate park

from DANGEROUS MINDS:



The Church of Santa Barbara in Llanera, Asturias, located near the northern coast of Spain, had been in disrepair for years until a group of concerned individuals formed a collective called the ‘Church Brigade’ and secured funding to transform the stately house of worship into a psychedelic skate park using murals by Okuda San Miguel.

The church was originally designed by Asturian architect Manuel del Busto in 1912. Church Brigade used crowdfunding strategies but also secured a grant from Red Bull. The public skate park is now called Kaos Temple.

The transformation took place in early December. My favorite bit from the project description is “Time flies, do not think and get involved.”
























Here’s an interview with Okuda San Miguel about the project. By the way, the word they translate in the subtitles as “fabrics” actually denotes “factories”:

via Bored Panda