Brent Sherwood: "Orbital cities"

IOA Sliver Lecture
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Brent Sherwood: “Orbital cities”

Over the next centuries, humans will begin settling space as they have settled every continent on Earth. Enough is known already about the space environment, the evolution of space technologies, and how humans live socially, to begin forecasting design principles for urban-scale infrastructure in Earth orbit. Most of the lecture is the progressive derivation of an integrated set of these principles. The principles can be used as a starting point for developing an infinite variety of valid design concepts. Brent Sherwood is a space architect from the Los Angeles area. He is manager of Strategic Planning and Project Formulation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Formerly he was at the Boeing Company developing engineering concepts for human planetary exploration; manufacturing methods for the International Space Station; and various commercial space opportunities. He has published extensively on topics related to the exploration and development of space, including the 2009 book Out of This World: The New Field of Space Architecture.