Habitant: small O'Neill cylinders and VR walk-through (2025–2026)

Design summary

Starting point. Marotta & Globus 2018, The High Frontier: An Easier Way: a minimal O'Neill cylinder (Kalpana-like) of 56 m radius × 112 m at 4 rpm in equatorial LEO with little shielding. Combine it with ThinkOrbital robotic EBW and Starship Habitant, 2025-10-17.
Small disc cylinder. 37.8 m radius at 5 rpm, 19 m long (the cargo-bay length) Habitant, 2025-10-17:
237.5 m circumference.
Pre-bent Ti sheets (8 × 19 m × 25 mm, ~18 t each) in ~6 Starships.
4512 m² of gravity floor, 85,287 m³, 73 t of air at 0.7 bar.
Short disc cylinders avoid long-axis tumbling Habitant, 2025-10-20.
Cylinder variants: 24 m × 32.6 m, ~5000 m². In ELEO, 200 kg/m² of shielding means 6 Starship launches against 333 for 10 t/m² Habitant, 2026-09-15; Habitant, 2026-09-18.
VR model. A Blender model and web/VR walk-through at 60, 40 and 24 m radius. It showed that walls must be radial Habitant, 2026-09-09; Habitant, 2026-09-11. See virtual reality.

Coastal Ron: O'Neill designs are not near-term; the rpm/radius sweet spot is unknown Coastal Ron, 2025-10-17.
Paul451: long-cylinder tumbling is long-axis instability, not intermediate-axis Paul451, 2025-10-19.
lamontagne's design checks for small cylinders lamontagne, 2026-09-15.

Can a 19 m long disc cylinder be welded robotically from pre-bent sheets in orbit?

Habitant, 2025-10-17 (reply #5010): High Frontier: An Easier Way. Post.
Coastal Ron, 2025-10-17 (reply #5011): Not near-term. Post.
Habitant, 2025-10-17 (reply #5012): Disc cylinder. Post.
Paul451, 2025-10-19 (reply #5021): Long-axis instability. Post.
Habitant, 2025-10-20 (reply #5022, 1 like): Short discs avoid tumbling. Post.
Habitant, 2026-09-09 (reply #5088, 4 likes): VR model (4 likes). Post. Attachments: habitat1.zip, screenshot1.png, screenshot2.png.
Habitant, 2026-09-11 (reply #5094, 2 likes): Radial walls (2 likes). Post.
lamontagne, 2026-09-15 (reply #5107, 3 likes): Design checks (3 likes). Post. Attachments: Image51_002.jpg.
Habitant, 2026-09-15 (reply #5111): Shielding launches. Post.
Habitant, 2026-09-18 (reply #5135, 1 like): Globus shielding. Post.