By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Babylon 5 takes place in a future filled with aliens, wormholes, and warring ancient civilizations, but thanks to the careful work of creator J. Michael Straczynski, it’s rooted in real physics and science. Even the space station at the center of everything uses a real physics solution to colonize space, and it’s all thanks to its shape. By using an O’Neill cylinder, Babylon 5’s rotating space station remains one of the most scientifically accurate depictions of life in zero gravity.
The O’Neill Cylinder
The O’Neill cylinder Babylon 5 uses was created by physicist Gerard O’Neill in the 70s as a way for humans to live in deep space. By rotating at a speed of 24 times per hour, the cylinder would simulate gravity on Earth but remain barely discernible to those within the cylinder, preventing widespread motion sickness. Each of the cylinders is rotating independently, in opposite directions, keeping the station aimed towards the Sun (or, in the show’s case, Epsilon Eridani).
Beyond the physics behind the O’Neill cylinder, Babylon 5 used more of Gerard’s design, bringing his vision of a utopian space-borne society to life. Gerard envisioned his theoretical station would be entirely self-sufficient, with, in addition to gravity, renewable energy, and the ability to grow food. While the war-torn five seasons of the show proved that the utopian ideal didn’t make it to 2257, the science did, even if the final design in the series has a few differences.
Habitats For Humans And Everything Else
The original O’Neill cylinder was designed to be significantly larger than the one in Babylon 5, at 16 miles in length, enough to house the population of Earth. At only five miles in length and one mile in diameter, compared to Gerard’s 20-mile thought experiment, the sci-fi space station is much more manageable. Environments in different sections were customized to support alien species, requiring CO2 or methane breathers for humans to survive within them.
J. Michael Straczynski thought through what life in an O’Neill cylinder would look like when he was designing the interiors of Babylon 5. That’s why the center of the station is filled with gardens, and the outer portions are more industrial, with some sections rotating on their own, simulating a different level of gravity from the Earth-like main portions. It’s also why there are sections still under construction, and as shown in “Grey 13 is Missing,” an entire hidden level of the space station, since Straczynski reasoned it would be in a constant state of repair, disassembly, and reassembly.
Real Science In Babylon 5
Bringing the O’Neill cylinder to life isn’t the only real science found in Babylon 5, as the jumpgates operate based on the Doppler effect, which is why they turn orange as the ships move away from them and blue as they move towards them. Even the Starfuries are shown to use real physics when they launch, taking advantage of the station’s rotating centrifugal force to take off faster and more efficiently than most sci-fi fighters. Once released into space, the Starfuries are shown to drift, with the lack of gravity in space causing an object in motion to remain constantly in motion unless it exerts an opposite force, the thrusters in this case.
The O’Neill cylinder may not be possible today, and it only exists in sci-fi, though Babylon 5 remains the best example of one yet, but like the Dyson Sphere, it’s an exciting thought experiment for humanity’s future among the stars. It’s one of the many ways that J. Michael Straczynski’s magnum opus remains one of the best sci-fi shows today, depicting a future in which greed and suffering are still present, but underneath, there’s hope for a better tomorrow.