Dyson Swarm · Space interactives by San Kala

01The Swarm · Mercury · 0.39 AU · sunlight 3 min

The Swarm

Take Mercury apart and put its matter in orbit around the Sun.

Open the Swarm

Venus in shadow behind a sunshade twice its width, a dark disc held in a red truss, with sunlight piling up against it and streaming past its rim.

02Venus · 0.72 AU · sunlight 6 min

Terraforming Venus

Shade Venus until its air snows out, pave over the ice, then lay soil on top.

Open Terraforming Venus

The Earth over the Indian Ocean, half in night with its cities lit, circled by a thin bright ring 300 kilometres up, with the Moon beyond.

03Earth · 1 AU · sunlight 8 min

The Orbital Ring

Ride a cable from the Pacific off San Francisco up to a ring 300 km above the Earth.

Open The Orbital Ring

An O’Neill cylinder in space, cut away along its side to show lakes, fields and clouds on the land inside, its glazed end facing the Sun.

04Near Earth · 1 AU · sunlight 8 min

Another Sky

Walk the shore inside an O’Neill cylinder, or fly up to the land overhead.

Open Another Sky

Out past Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Sunlight takes four hours to get to Neptune.

Neptune, banded in blues with its faint rings, and its moon Triton in front, drawn as cloisonné enamel in gold wire, its night side full of lit halls and the whole moon glowing.

05Triton · Neptune · 30 AU · sunlight 4 h

Triton

A moon grown into a computer, from 2050 to 2090, powered by fusion.

Open Triton

Starting in the 2050s.

Most talk about the future looks ten or twenty years ahead. I’m deliberately looking further: the 2050s and on, past the singularity, when we start building megastructures in space. Very few people think about space, AI and the singularity together. These places are where I do.

Most futures These places Now 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080

Space futurism and AI futurism, together.