1.5 space colonies, and sparked several studies and conferences on the subject. The Marshall Space Flight Center reviewed space colonization and the O'Neill designs in an assessment dated January 1975 (1.5). This study presented a set of program requirements (smaller stations, simulation facilities, transport systems, lunar and libration point bases) to develop the technologies required for the establishment of space colonies. The Princeton University conference of May 1975, titled "Space Manufacturing Facilities" (1.7), gathered 130 participants to explore the problems and benefits of space colonization. Their discussions covered a wide range of issues: transportation systems, construction sites, materials procurement and processing, fabrication techniques, human physiology, ecology, social and cultural factors, solar energy, and program organization. In the summer of 1975, Stanford University, the American Society for Engineering Education, and the NASA Ames Research Center sponsored a ten-week study session on space colonies. This group investigated human physiology, life-support, and economics, further defined the overall concept of space colonization, and produced a colony design called the Stanford Torus, with a lower spin rate than the O'Neill Model 1 (1.8). Both these designs are shown in Figure 1.1. Together with other proposed designs (1.9) (1.6), these concepts set the stage for this study, and for other research on space colonies as well. In particular, during the writing and editing of this report, NASA Headquarters sponsored a 1976 Summer Study at NASA Ames Research Center. This six-week research effort concentrated on the Transport Linear Accelerator, orbital mechanics, materials processing, and space construction systems (1.10).
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