Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content, check out

go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

At some point, we're going to run out of the living room, so how can we use celestial, circular innovation to put humanities like a real estate

in the rear view mirror?

Today we'll be looking at the Banks-Obril, an immense maker structure in the form of a

ring-shaped habitat, more than a million miles in diameter, and depending on the rings

width, containing hundreds, if not thousands of Earth's worth of living area, all enjoying

more naturally Earth-like conditions than the other rotating habitat

design.

We were talking about assembling a structure that makes all of humanity's combined constructions

to date look like a toddler sandcastle.

We'll be deep diving this structure, it's engineering, why it's desirable, and what life

on it might be like.

So let's jump into the cosmic deep end

and find out just what it takes to live in space's answer to luxury living, spiced with

touch of celestial extravagance. Routine and habitat megastructures have a lot going for them.

They let you pick your gravity and pressure and use way less material than a planet does

for creating a given amount of living space.

And since they are spin-gravity environments, not mass-generated, it's very easy for spaceships

to come to and from.

...