O'Neil ships, also known as colony-ships, are merchant spacecraft designed for the bulk transport of people and materials. There are two basic types of O'Neil ship: colony ships and resource tankers. Resource tankers move large quantities of raw materials purified into fine powder or gas from their point of extraction or refineries to space stations and elevator docks. Colony ships are designed to move humans, plants, and animals around the solar system.
O'Neil ships are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from transit ships of a few billion metric tons of deadweight (DWT) to the mammoth ultra large colony carriers (ULCCs) of a trillion tonnes of DWT. ULCCs are comparatively rare, with 11 specimens identified as of 2160, compared to the 153 smaller O'neil ships transporting the bulk of inner-system cargo and colonists.
History[]
The name derives from the 20th century space colonization theorist Gerard K. O'Neill though the final L is normally dropped to make clear the lack of any formal connection with his designs or organizations.
It is generally held that the first example of an O'Neil ship was first built around Titan in 2041 to deliver Nitrogen down system to Mars. While the spacecraft, later rechristened the Titan Varda, was originally built purely as a tanker, Titan Space Systems was forced to find a new use for the vehicle after its second flight to Mars when Nitrogen harvesting made it possible to simply send artificial comets of frozen nitrogen directly down system without the need of a hull. The ship was purchased by Europa Biosystems to serve as a test-bed for new closed-environment generation technologies, and sent around the solar system as an artificial nature preserve with a population of 25 permanent residents who would offer tours to colony planners. The open environment of the ship drew many investors to TSS with the desire that they build more of these vessels for more efficient inter-solar travel. TSS partnered with Europa Biosystems and produced the sister ships, the Titan Yavanna and Titan Manwë in 2055. That same year, Ganymede Shipbuilding was founded purely to build new O'Neil ships contracted through the Mars Corporation for a long term project to produce useful biomass and create a means for efficient colonization.
By the 2070s there were only 22 O'Neil ships completed and flying across the solar system, used chiefly for generating concentrated blocks of biomass for terraforming transplanting and hauling the millions of would be-colonists to Mars.
Production of O'Neil ships surged during the Terran Diaspora with 70 new ships being built from 2133 to 2160, and the rise of ULCCs for interstellar colony missions.
| Commissioned | Origins | Class or Name | Builder | Type | Draft | Crew Capacity | Production | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europa Biosystems | Telchar Ship Yards, Titan | Heavy Transport Spacecraft-Titan | Titan Space Systems | Nitrogen supertanker - first O'Neil Ship | 1km | 25 | 2041-2060 | 3 ships built |
| Mars Corporation | Blackstock Ship Yards, Ganymede | Heavy Transport Spacecraft-Persephone | Ganymede Shipbuilding | Colony Transport | 5km | 50,000 | 2055-2083 | 5 ships built |
| Venus Group | Telchar Ship Yards, Titan | Heavy Transport Spacecraft-Hyperion | Titan Space Systems | Massive Mobile Bioreactor | 9km | 50,000 | 2055-2059 | 2 ships built |
| Mars Corporation | Atlas Ship Yards, Saturn | Ultra Large Colony Carrier -Atlas | Titan Space Systems | Colony Transport | 32km | 170,000 | 2054-2079 | 3 ships built |
| Mars Corporation | Atlas Ship Yards, Saturn | Ultra Large Colony Carrier -Rama | Titan Space Systems | Colony Transport | 20km | 170,000 | 2066-2095 | 15 ships built |
| Interplanetary Trade Commission | Blackstock Ship Yards, Ganymede | Ultra Large Colony Carrier -Mayflower | Ganymede Shipbuilding | Colony Transport | 55km | 210,000 | 2083-2099 | 7 ships built |
| NASA | Charon Ship Yards, Pluto | Ultra Large Colony Carrier -Hydra | Triton Shipbuilding | Interstellar Colony Transport | 100km | 50,000 (in cryo) | 2099-2108 | 1 ship built |
| Interplanetary Trade Commission | Telchar Ship Yards, Titan | Ultra Large Colony Carrier -Ellis Island | Triton Shipbuilding | Interstellar Colony Transport | 35km | 210,000 | 2130-2155 | 20 ships built |