NASA of the 1970s reveals how it thought the future would look

Toroidial colony cutaway view Artwork by Rick Guidice Toroidial colony cutaway view Artwork by Rick Guidice Photo: NASA Ames Research Center Photo: NASA Ames Research Center Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close NASA of the 1970s reveals how it thought the future would look 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

NASA has revealed what it thought the future might look like back in the 1970s and it's pretty impressive.

Three concepts for space colonies were drawn up showing elaborate communities to house anything from 10,000 people all the way up to a full 1 million people, with everything from rivers to trees to fully enclosed agriculture pods.

NAS thought that rather than living on planets, settlers would live on gigantic spaceships in three different designs: cylindrical colonies, toroidal -- or donut shaped -- colonies and Bernal spheres in which the people would live inside a giant hollow sphere.

The settlements would be airtight to hold a breathable atmosphere and would rotate in order to provide psuedo-gravity so the people could stand on the inside of the hull of any given ship.

The renderings were drawn up by researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center and Stanford University during three space colony summer studies done in the 1970s, when space exploration was arguably reaching towards its heyday. Thave been kept under wraps until now.

The cylindrical design is perhaps the most impressive, with the potential to house over 1 million people with full-grown living landscapes mixed with human engineering like a suspension bridge.

The agriculture models in the Bernal sphere design show cattle being raised in fields on one level while above, on a second tier, regular farm machinery harvests crops.

Many benefits of living in a colony are noted including access to "continuous, ample, reliable solar energy" and "great views from Earth."

Enormous amounts of matter, probably lunar soil at first, according to the researchers, must cover the settlements to protect inhabitants from radiation just as the Earth's atmosphere is designed to protect us regular Earthlings.

NASA's settlements website shows just how optimistic these visionaries were about how far space travel could develop, suggesting the idea of launching millions of people to live in space was not totally outlandish.

"Space settlement needs inexpensive, safe launch systems to deliver thousands, perhaps millions, of people into orbit. If this seems unrealistic, note that a hundred and fifty years ago nobody had ever flown in an airplane, but today nearly 500 million people fly each year," says the site.

Above all that though is a clear disclaimer stating that this is merely information about the 1970s project and not current policy, a sad reflection, perhaps, of the near collapse of the space program that has happened in the 50 years since these designs were envisioned.

Within the information from the project is also a suggestion that handicapped people might form their own zero-G colony which would make wheelchairs unnecessary. A space penal colony is also proposed, as they would be "fairly escape proof."

NASA now runs an annual compeition for 6th-12th graders asking them for space settlement designs.

This year's winner's from the High School of Mathmatics in Varna, Bulgaria, came up with an almost equally impressive design. Their space colony, called Greenspace, would house 16,000 people with the main aim of becoming a colony designed to remove space debris.