IX. THE O'NEILL CONCEPT In September 1974, Professor Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University published a paper (19) suggesting that the colonization of space was possible with no more than current technology and if carried out expeditiously could solve many of our most pressing problems. The concept has since been further refined by Professor O'Neill and others (Refs. Il through 18, A18, A19, A20, D7) and now generally includes the manufacture of habitats and other products from lunar materials, the transportation of large numbers of people to the orbital habitats, and the provision of power by means of solar thermal conversion at geosynchronous orbit and microwave transmission to the earth as described in Section III. The concept as originally put forward tended to emphasize the possibility for solving the population problem whereas the most recent refinements focus on the energy problem. Thus, although the concept encompasses a good deal more than a satellite power system, its supporters contend that it should be considered in this arena. The central ideas of the O'Neill concept are: • To establish a highly-industrialized, selfmaintaining human community in free space, at a location along the coincidence of the orbit of the moon called L5. • To construct that community on a short time scale, without depending on rocket engines any more advanced than those of the space shuttle. • To reduce the costs greatly by obtaining nearly all of the construction materials from the surface of the moon. • At the space community, to process lunar surface raw materials into metals, ceramics, glass and oxygen for the construction of both
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