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Gerard Kitchen O'Neill (February 6, 1927 – April 27, 1992) was an American
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
and
space activist Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consid ...
. As a faculty member of
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s, he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a
space habitat A space habitat (also called a space settlement, space colony, spacestead, space city, orbital habitat, orbital settlement, orbital colony, orbital stead or orbital city) is a more advanced form of living quarters than a space station or habi ...
design known as the O'Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and
colonization Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
. O'Neill began researching high-energy
particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
at
Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...
in 1954, after he received his doctorate from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
. Two years later, he published his theory for a particle storage ring. This invention allowed
particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...
s at much higher energies than had previously been possible. In 1965 at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
, he performed the first colliding beam physics experiment. While teaching physics at Princeton, O'Neill became interested in the possibility that humans could survive and live in outer space. He researched and proposed a futuristic idea for human settlement in space, the O'Neill cylinder, in "The Colonization of Space", his first paper on the subject. He held a conference on space manufacturing at Princeton in 1975. Many who became post-
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
-era space activists attended. O'Neill built his first mass driver prototype with professor
Henry Kolm Henry Herbert Kolm (September 9, 1924 in Vienna – July 29, 2010 in Concord, Massachusetts) was an American physicist associated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for many years, with extensive expertise in high-power magnets a ...
in 1976. He considered mass drivers critical for extracting the mineral resources of the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
and
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
s. His award-winning book '' The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space'' inspired a generation of space exploration advocates. He died of
leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
in 1992.


Birth, education, and family life

O'Neill was born in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
on February 6, 1927, to Edward Gerard O'Neill, a lawyer, and Dorothy Lewis O'Neill (née Kitchen). "Gerard K. O'Neill" ''Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present'' "Gerard K(itchen) O'Neill" ''Contemporary Authors Online'' He had no siblings. His family moved to
Speculator, New York Speculator is a village in Hamilton County, New York, United States. The population was 406 at the 2020 census. The Speculator Mountain rises just south of the village. Speculator is the only incorporated village within Hamilton County and is wi ...
when his father temporarily retired for health reasons. For high school, O'Neill attended Newburgh Free Academy in
Newburgh, New York Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...
. While he was a student there he edited the school newspaper and took a job as a news broadcaster at a local radio station. He graduated in 1944, during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and enlisted in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
on his 17th birthday. The Navy trained him as a radar technician, which sparked his interest in science. After he was honorably discharged in 1946, O'Neill studied physics and mathematics at
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...
. As a child he had discussed the possibilities of humans in space with his parents, and in college he enjoyed working on rocket equations. However, he did not see space science as an option for a career path in physics, choosing instead to pursue high-energy physics. He graduated with
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
honors in 1950. O'Neill pursued graduate studies at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
with the help of an Atomic Energy Commission fellowship, and was awarded a
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in physics in 1954. O'Neill married Sylvia Turlington, also a Swarthmore graduate, in June 1950. "Sylvia Turlington Wed at Her Home" ''New York Times'' They had a son, Roger, and two daughters, Janet and Eleanor, before their marriage ended in divorce in 1966. One of O'Neill's favorite activities was flying. He held instrument certifications in both powered and sailplane flight and held the FAI Diamond Badge, a gliding award. During his first cross-country glider flight in April 1973, he was assisted on the ground by Renate "Tasha" Steffen. He had met Tasha, who was 21 years younger than him, previously through the
YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
International Club. They were married the day after his flight. They had a son, Edward O'Neill.


High-energy physics research

After graduating from Cornell, O'Neill accepted a position as an instructor at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
. There he started his research into high-energy
particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
. In 1956, his second year of teaching, he published a two-page article that theorized that the particles produced by a
particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...
could be stored for a few seconds in a storage ring. The stored particles could then be directed to collide with another particle beam. This would increase the energy of the particle collision over the previous method, which directed the beam at a fixed target. His ideas were not immediately accepted by the physics community. O'Neill became an assistant professor at Princeton in 1956, and was promoted to associate professor in 1959. He visited Stanford University in 1957 to meet with Professor
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky Wolfgang Kurt Hermann "Pief" Panofsky (April 24, 1919 – September 24, 2007), was a German-American physicist who won many awards including the National Medal of Science. Early life Panofsky was born in Berlin, Germany to a family of art h ...
. This resulted in a collaboration between Princeton and Stanford to build the Colliding Beam Experiment (CBX). With a US$800,000 grant from the
Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to pl ...
, construction on the first particle storage rings began in 1958 at the Stanford High-Energy Physics Laboratory. He figured out how to capture the particles and, by pumping the air out to produce a
vacuum A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often ...
, store them long enough to experiment on them. CBX stored its first beam on March 28, 1962. O'Neill became a full professor of physics in 1965. In collaboration with
Burton Richter Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018) was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by Sa ...
, O'Neill performed the first colliding beam physics experiment in 1965. In this experiment, particle beams from the
Stanford Linear Accelerator SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
were collected in his storage rings and then directed to collide at an energy of 600 MeV. At the time, this was the highest energy involved in a particle collision. The results proved that the charge of an electron is contained in a volume less than 100 attometers across. O'Neill considered his device to be capable of only seconds of storage, but, by creating an even stronger vacuum, others were able to increase this to hours. In 1979, he, with physicist David C. Cheng, wrote the graduate-level textbook ''Elementary Particle Physics: An Introduction''. He retired from teaching in 1985, but remained associated with Princeton as ''professor emeritus'' until his death.


Space colonization


Origin of the idea (1969)

O'Neill saw great potential in the United States space program, especially the Apollo missions. He applied to the Astronaut Corps after NASA opened it up to civilian scientists in 1966. Later, when asked why he wanted to go on the Moon missions, he said, "to be alive now and not take part in it seemed terribly myopic". He was put through NASA's rigorous mental and physical examinations. During this time he met Brian O'Leary, also a scientist-astronaut candidate, who became his good friend. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 243 O'Leary was selected for Astronaut Group 6 but O'Neill was not. O'Neill became interested in the idea of space colonization in 1969 while he was teaching freshman physics at Princeton University. His students were growing cynical about the benefits of science to humanity because of the controversy surrounding the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 233 To give them something relevant to study, he began using examples from the Apollo program as applications of elementary physics. O'Neill posed the question during an extra seminar he gave to a few of his students: "Is the surface of a planet really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?" His students' research convinced him that the answer was no. O'Neill was inspired by the papers written by his students. He began to work out the details of a program to build self-supporting space habitats in free space. Among the details was how to provide the inhabitants of a space colony with an Earth-like environment. His students had designed giant pressurized structures, spun up to approximate Earth gravity by
centrifugal force In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is paralle ...
. With the population of the colony living on the inner surface of a sphere or cylinder, these structures resembled "inside-out planets". He found that pairing counter-rotating cylinders would eliminate the need to spin them using rockets. This configuration has since been known as the '' O'Neill cylinder''.


First paper (1970–1974)

Looking for an outlet for his ideas, O'Neill wrote a paper titled "The Colonization of Space", and for four years attempted to have it published. He submitted it to several journals and magazines, including ''Scientific American'' and ''Science'', only to have it rejected by the reviewers. During this time O'Neill gave lectures on space colonization at
Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...
, Princeton, and other schools. The Hampshire lecture was facilitated by O'Leary, by now an assistant professor of astronomy and science policy assessment at the institution; in 1976, he joined O'Neill's research group at Princeton. Many students and staff attending the lectures became enthusiastic about the possibility of living in space. Another outlet for O'Neill to explore his ideas was with his children; on walks in the forest they speculated about life in a space colony. His paper finally appeared in the September 1974 issue of ''
Physics Today ''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society ...
''. In it, he argued that building space colonies would solve several important problems: He explored the possibilities of flying gliders inside a space colony, finding that the enormous volume could support atmospheric thermals. He calculated that humanity could expand on this man-made frontier to 20,000 times its population. The initial colonies would be built at the Earth-Moon and Lagrange points. and are stable points in the
Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...
where a spacecraft can maintain its position without expending energy. The paper was well received, but many who would begin work on the project had already been introduced to his ideas before it was even published. The paper received a few critical responses. Some questioned the practicality of lifting tens of thousands of people into orbit and his estimates for the production output of initial colonies. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 253 While he was waiting for his paper to be published, O'Neill organized a small two-day conference in May 1974 at Princeton to discuss the possibility of colonizing outer space. The conference, titled ''First Conference on Space Colonization'', was funded by Stewart Brand's Point Foundation and Princeton University. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 249 Among those who attended were Eric Drexler (at the time a freshman at MIT), scientist-astronaut
Joe Allen Joseph Michael Allen (born 14 March 1990) is a Welsh professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for EFL Championship club Swansea City. Allen began his career at Swansea City, making his first-team debut in January 2007 at age 16. H ...
(from Astronaut Group 6),
Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...
, and science reporter Walter Sullivan. Representatives from NASA also attended and brought estimates of launch costs expected on the planned
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...
. O'Neill thought of the attendees as "a band of daring radicals". Sullivan's article on the conference was published on the front page of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' on May 13, 1974. As media coverage grew, O'Neill was inundated with letters from people who were excited about living in space. To stay in touch with them, O'Neill began keeping a mailing list and started sending out updates on his progress. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 252 A few months later he heard Peter Glaser speak about
solar power satellite Space-based solar power (SBSP, SSP) is the concept of collecting solar power in outer space by solar power satellites (SPS) and distributing it to Earth. Its advantages include a higher collection of energy due to the lack of reflection and a ...
s at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...
. O'Neill realized that, by building these satellites, his space colonies could quickly recover the cost of their construction. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 255 According to O'Neill, "the profound difference between this and everything else done in space is the potential of generating large amounts of new wealth".


NASA studies (1975–1977)

O'Neill held a much larger conference the following May titled ''Princeton University Conference on Space Manufacturing''. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 256 At this conference more than two dozen speakers presented papers, including
Keith Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons i ...
and Carolyn Henson from
Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...
. ''Space Manufacturing Facilities'' 1977 After the conference Carolyn Henson arranged a meeting between O'Neill and Arizona Congressman
Mo Udall Morris King "Mo" Udall (June 15, 1922 – December 12, 1998) was an American attorney and Democratic politician who served as a U.S. representative from Arizona from May 2, 1961, to May 4, 1991. He was a leading contender for the 1976 Democ ...
, then a leading contender for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Udall wrote a letter of support, which he asked the Hensons to publicize, for O'Neill's work. The Hensons included his letter in the first issue of the L-5 Society newsletter, sent to everyone on O'Neill's mailing list and those who had signed up at the conference. In June 1975, O'Neill led a ten-week study of permanent space habitats at NASA Ames. During the study he was called away to testify on July 23 to the
House A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...
Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 282 On January 19, 1976, he also appeared before the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
Subcommittee on Aerospace Technology and National Needs. In a presentation titled ''Solar Power from Satellites'', he laid out his case for an Apollo-style program for building power plants in space. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 264 He returned to Ames in June 1976 and 1977 to lead studies on space manufacturing. ''SSI History'' In these studies, NASA developed detailed plans to establish bases on the Moon where space-suited workers would mine the mineral resources needed to build space colonies and solar power satellites. O'Neill ''Summer Study Notes'' 1977


Private funding (1977–1978)

Although NASA was supporting his work with grants of up to $500,000 per year, O'Neill became frustrated by the bureaucracy and politics inherent in government-funded research. He thought that small privately funded groups could develop space technology faster than government agencies. In 1977, O'Neill and his wife Tasha founded the Space Studies Institute, a non-profit organization, at Princeton University. SSI received initial funding of almost $100,000 from private donors, and in early 1978 began to support basic research into technologies needed for space manufacturing and settlement. One of SSI's first grants funded the development of the mass driver, a device first proposed by O'Neill in 1974. ''About SSI'' Mass drivers are based on the coilgun design, adapted to accelerate a non-magnetic object. One application O'Neill proposed for mass drivers was to throw baseball-sized chunks of ore mined from the surface of the Moon into space. Once in space, the ore could be used as raw material for building space colonies and solar power satellites. He took a sabbatical from Princeton to work on mass drivers at MIT. There he served as the Hunsaker Visiting Professor of Aerospace during the 1976–77 academic year. At MIT, he, Henry H. Kolm, and a group of student volunteers built their first mass driver prototype. The eight-foot (2.5 m) long prototype could apply 33 '' g'' (320 m/s2) of acceleration to an object inserted into it. With financial assistance from SSI, later prototypes improved this to 1,800 ''g'' (18,000 m/s2), enough acceleration that a mass driver only 520 feet (160 m) long could launch material off the surface of the Moon.


Opposition (1977–1985)

In 1977, O'Neill saw the peak of interest in space colonization, along with the publication of his first book, '' The High Frontier''. He and his wife were flying between meetings, interviews, and hearings. On October 9, the CBS program ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique st ...
'' ran a segment about space colonies. Later they aired responses from the viewers, which included one from Senator
William Proxmire Edward William Proxmire (November 11, 1915 – December 15, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989. He holds the record for being the longest-serv ...
, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee responsible for NASA's budget and an aggressive critic of
government failure Government failure, in the context of public economics, is an economic inefficiency caused by a government intervention, if the inefficiency would not exist in a true free market. The costs of the government intervention are greater than the ben ...
. His response was: "It's the best argument yet for chopping NASA's funding to the bone .... I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy". He successfully eliminated spending on space colonization research from the budget. In 1978,
Paul Werbos Paul John Werbos (born 1947) is an American social scientist and machine learning pioneer. He is best known for his 1974 dissertation, which first described the process of training artificial neural networks through backpropagation of errors. He ...
wrote for the L-5 newsletter, "no one expects Congress to commit us to O'Neill's concept of large-scale space habitats; people in NASA are almost paranoid about the public relations aspects of the idea". When it became clear that a government-funded colonization effort was politically impossible, popular support for O'Neill's ideas started to evaporate. Other pressures on O'Neill's colonization plan were the high cost of access to Earth orbit and the declining cost of energy. Building solar power stations in space was economically attractive when energy prices spiked during the
1979 oil crisis The 1979 oil crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four per ...
. When prices dropped in the early 1980s, funding for space solar power research dried up. His plan had also been based on NASA's estimates for the flight rate and launch cost of the Space Shuttle, numbers that turned out to have been wildly optimistic. His 1977 book quoted a Space Shuttle launch cost of $10 million, but in 1981 the subsidized price given to commercial customers started at $38 million. O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 134 A 1985 accounting of the full cost of a launch in 1985 raised this as high as $180 million per flight. O'Neill was appointed by United States President
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
to the National Commission on Space in 1985. The commission, led by former NASA administrator
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
, proposed that the government commit to opening the inner Solar System for human settlement within 50 years. Their report was released in May 1986, four months after the
Space Shuttle Challenger Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, ''Challen ...
broke up on ascent.


Writing career

O'Neill's popular science book '' The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space'' (1977) combined fictional accounts of space settlers with an explanation of his plan to build space colonies. Its publication established him as the spokesman for the space colonization movement. It won the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science that year, and prompted Swarthmore College to grant him an
honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
. ''Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science Winners'' ''The High Frontier'' has been translated into five languages and remained in print as of 2008. His 1981 book '' 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future'' was an exercise in
futurology Futures studies, futures research, futurism or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will li ...
. O'Neill narrated it as a visitor to Earth from a space colony beyond Pluto. The book explored the effects of technologies he called "drivers of change" on the coming century. Some technologies he described were space colonies, solar power satellites, anti-aging drugs, hydrogen-propelled cars,
climate control Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...
, and underground magnetic trains. He left the social structure of the 1980s intact, assuming that humanity would remain unchanged even as it expanded into the Solar System. Reviews of ''2081'' were mixed. ''New York Times'' reviewer
John Noble Wilford John Noble Wilford (born October 4, 1933) is an author and science journalist for ''The New York Times''. Biography Wilford was born October 4, 1933, in Murray, Kentucky, and attended Grove High School across the border in nearby Paris, Tennessee. ...
found the book "imagination-stirring", but
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thought the technologies described were unacceptably far-fetched. In his book ''The Technology Edge'', published in 1983, O'Neill wrote about economic competition with Japan. He argued that the United States had to develop six industries to compete: microengineering,
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
,
genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including ...
, Magnetic levitation, magnetic flight, Flying car (fiction), family aircraft, and Outline of space science, space science. He also thought that industrial development was suffering from short-sighted executives, self-interested unions, high taxes, and poor education of Americans. According to reviewer Henry Weil, O'Neill's detailed explanations of emerging technologies differentiated the book from others on the subject.


Entrepreneurial efforts

O'Neill founded Geostar Corporation to develop a satellite position determination system for which he was granted a patent in 1982. The system, primarily intended to track aircraft, was called Radio Determination Satellite Service (RDSS). In April 1983 Geostar applied to the FCC for a license to broadcast from three satellites, which would cover the entire United States. Geostar launched GSTAR-2 into geosynchronous orbit in 1986. Its transmitter package permanently failed two months later, so Geostar began tests of RDSS by transmitting from other satellites. With his health failing, O'Neill became less involved with the company at the same time it started to run into trouble.#SmitGeo, ''Geostar Corporation Records 1983–1991'' In February 1991 Geostar filed for bankruptcy and its licenses were sold to Motorola for the Iridium satellite constellation project. Although the system was eventually replaced by Global Positioning System, GPS, O'Neill made significant advances in the field of position determination. O'Neill founded O'Neill Communications in Princeton in 1986. He introduced his Local Area Wireless Networking, or LAWN, system at the PC Expo in New York in 1989. The LAWN system allowed two computers to exchange messages over a range of a couple hundred feet at a cost of about $500 per node. O'Neill Communications went out of business in 1993; the LAWN technology was sold to Omnispread Communications. As of 2008, Omnispread continued to sell a variant of O'Neill's LAWN system.#Keystone06, Keystone press release 2006, p. 4 On November 18, 1991, O'Neill filed a patent application for a vactrain system. He called the company he wanted to form ''VSE International'', for velocity, silence, and efficiency. However, the concept itself he called ''Magnetic Flight''. The vehicles, instead of running on a pair of tracks, would be elevated using electromagnetic force by a single track within a tube (permanent magnets in the track, with variable magnets on the vehicle), and propelled by electromagnetic forces through tunnels. He estimated the trains could reach speeds of up to 2,500 mph (4,000 km/h) — about five times faster than a jet airliner — if the air was evacuated from the tunnels. To obtain such speeds, the vehicle would accelerate for the first half of the trip, and then decelerate for the second half of the trip. The acceleration was planned to be a maximum of about one-half of the force of gravity. O'Neill planned to build a network of stations connected by these tunnels, but he died two years before his first patent on it was granted.


Death and legacy

O'Neill was diagnosed with
leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
in 1985. He died on April 27, 1992, from complications of the disease at the Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California. He was survived by his wife Tasha, his ex-wife Sylvia, and his four children. A sample of his incinerated remains was Space burial, buried in space. The Celestis vial containing his ashes was attached with vials of other Celestis participants to a Pegasus (rocket), Pegasus XL rocket and launched into Earth orbit on April 21, 1997. It re-entered the atmosphere in May 2002. O'Neill directed his Space Studies Institute to continue their efforts "until people are living and working in space". After his death, management of SSI was passed to his son Roger and colleague Freeman Dyson. SSI continued to hold conferences every other year to bring together scientists studying space colonization until 2001. O'Neill's work informs the company Blue Origin founded by Jeff Bezos, which wants to build the infrastructure for future space colonization.
Henry Kolm Henry Herbert Kolm (September 9, 1924 in Vienna – July 29, 2010 in Concord, Massachusetts) was an American physicist associated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for many years, with extensive expertise in high-power magnets a ...
went on to start Magplane Technology in the 1990s to develop the magnetic transportation technology that O'Neill had written about. In 2007, Magplane demonstrated a working magnetic pipeline system to transport phosphate ore in Florida. The system ran at a speed of 40 mph (65 km/h), far slower than the high-speed trains O'Neill envisioned. All three of the founders of the Space Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement, were supporters of O'Neill's ideas and had worked with him in various capacities at the Space Studies Institute. One of them, Rick Tumlinson, describes three men as models for space advocacy: Wernher von Braun, Gerard K. O'Neill, and Carl Sagan. Von Braun pushed for "projects that ordinary people can be proud of but not participate in". Sagan wanted to explore the universe from a distance. O'Neill, with his grand scheme for settlement of the Solar System, emphasized moving ordinary people off the Earth "en masse". The National Space Society (NSS) gives the Gerard K. O'Neill Memorial Award for Space Settlement Advocacy to individuals noted for their contributions in the area of space settlement. Their contributions can be scientific, legislative, and educational. The award is a trophy cast in the shape of a Bernal sphere. The NSS first bestowed the award in 2007 on lunar entrepreneur and former astronaut Harrison Schmitt. In 2008, it was given to physicist John Marburger.#NSSAward, NSS Gerard K. O'Neill Memorial Award As of November, 2013, Gerard O'Neill's papers and work are now located in the archives at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.


Publications


Books

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Papers

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Patents

O'Neill was granted six patents in total (two posthumously) in the areas of global position determination and magnetic levitation. * Satellite-based vehicle position determining system, granted November 16, 1982 * Satellite-based position determining and message transfer system with monitoring of link quality, granted May 10, 1988 * Position determination and message transfer system employing satellites and stored terrain map, granted June 13, 1989 * Position determination and message transfer system employing satellites and stored terrain map, granted October 23, 1990 * High speed transport system, granted February 1, 1994 * High speed transport system, granted July 18, 1995


See also

*Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii, Konstantin Tsiolkovskii (1857–1935) wrote about humans living in space in the 1920s *John Desmond Bernal, J. D. Bernal (1901–1971) inventor of the Bernal sphere, a space habitat design *Rolf Wideröe (1902–1996) filed for a patent on a particle storage ring design during World War II O'Neill ''The High Frontier'' 1977, p. 239 *Krafft Arnold Ehricke, Krafft Ehricke (1917–1984) rocket engineer and space colonization advocate *John S. Lewis, wrote about the resources of the Solar System in Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets, Mining the Sky *Marshall Savage, author of The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps *Spome *Space architecture *Space-based solar power


Notes


References

Books * * * * * * * * * * Articles * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Videos
The Vision of Gerard K. O'Neil
30 min testimony about what ordinary people can do about space 5 min presenting space habitats and solar power satellites Other references * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* McCray, W. Patrick. ''The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future '' (Princeton University Press; 2012) 328 pages; Focuses on O'Neill and the MIT-trained engineer Eric Drexler in a study of exploratory science.


External links


Life of Gerard O'Neill at Space Studies Institute The High Frontier: The untold story of Gerard K. O'Neill
documentary film (2019)
Paul R Marcano dedicated his album Islands in Space to Gerard K. O'Neill
vinyl record (1981) {{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Gerard K. 1927 births 1992 deaths Military personnel from New York City American astronomers 20th-century American physicists Deaths from cancer in California Cornell University alumni Deaths from leukemia Futurologists Particle physicists Accelerator physicists Writers from Brooklyn Space advocates Space burials Swarthmore College alumni Princeton University faculty Stanford University faculty United States Navy sailors Scientists from New York City Fellows of the American Physical Society