Future Cities Inside Asteroids Proposed in the Most Bizarre Concept Yet for Colonising Space

Scientists have proposed the most bizarre concept yet by living within asteroids. The team from the University of Rochester proposed hollowing down an asteroid and boosting its spin to create artificial gravity and putting in buildings to form a city.

They claim that enclosing the selected asteroid in a flexible, mesh bag constructed of carbon nanofibres would prevent debris from shattering as it rotated. But they also admitted that their idea is still wildly theoretical, like science fiction, as it would need engineering capacities that do not exist yet.

Habitat Bennu: Outlandish Space Floating City

Floating space cities are not a novel idea. When NASA hired physicist Gerard O'Neill to create a space habitat in 1972, he made history as he developed the brilliant idea for spinning cities using two revolving cylinders moving in opposite directions to mimic Earth-like gravity at the time, which became known as "O'Neill cylinders."

According to the press release, the cylinders would rotate fast enough to provide artificial gravity on the inner surface but also slow enough for people living in them not to experience motion sickness.

O'Neill cylinders have been a science fiction staple for over 50 years and were even cited by space cadets like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. However, the idea put out by this group of mechanical engineers, physicists, and astronomers may offer a peek at what these kinds of future space cities would truly look like.

Since the materials for a traditional O'Neill cylinder would be too expensive to launch into space, the researchers came up with an alternative strategy: using asteroids, which could "provide a faster, cheaper, and more effective path to space cities," according to University of Rochester physics professor Adam Frank who is a co-author of a recent paper.

The project is called "Habitat Bennu," which takes inspiration from a conceivably hollow asteroid initially identified in 1999 and most recently visited by Japan's OSIRIS-REx mission.

Is Habitat Bennu Realistic or Just Science Fiction?

The main problem with Habitat Bennu is that asteroids frequently resemble a pile of debris rather than the Earth's solid surface, and this is where the mesh bag becomes useful.

The news release states that such a bag could theoretically wrap and support the spinning space city while maintaining its weight as it spins. The bag would comprise enormous carbon nanofiber tubes only a few atoms thick.

The asteroid could then be spun inside the bag by a device, scattering debris onto the nanofiber mesh, which would then "snap taut" and create a layer shielding the inhabitants of the asteroid city from radiation. The inside surface receives artificial gravity from the cylinder's rotation.

Although it seems impossible, Frank said that the engineering and technologies used to build the asteroid city technically follow the rules of physics. CNet reported that a 300-meter-diameter asteroid, or approximately the size of a few football fields, might be transformed into a cylindrical space city with a living space of about 22 square miles or about the size of Manhattan.

Spinning and bagging an asteroid would not be easy. The researchers advise utilizing solar-powered debris cannons to start the spinning motion. On the interior, there's also the issue of building a colony that is safe for humans, but scientists are not yet done with their concept and will be adding more details soon.

They discuss the features of the asteroid city in their study, titled "Habitat Bennu: Design Concepts for Spinning Habitats Constructed From Rubble Pile Near-Earth Asteroids," which is published in the journal Frontiers.

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