Short stories about the Sparks in the OUBEY MINDSPACE – Episode 4: Space Colonies

We search for life on other planets and explore the possibilities of extraterrestrial intelligence. Perhaps one day we humans will colonize space ourselves?

Not a temporary stay in an ISS research station, but a permanent relocation? Perhaps the question should be rephrased: When will humans first relocate to space?

OUBEY already spoke in 1992 about how the rapid increase in the human population on Earth is at the expense of all other living beings on this planet. And that humanity should leave Earth and move to space – in the long term.

The idea that we humans could approach space, where our Earth floats and revolves around the sun once a year, travel there or even live there for a certain period of time, has been around for a very long time. Fantastic science fiction stories, but also scientific studies, have repeatedly encouraged us not to dismiss this idea as fantasy, but to believe in its feasibility.

Manned space flight has shown us how it is possible to overcome gravity, leave the Earth’s atmosphere, and venture into the space of our solar system. Scientific projects have repeatedly investigated what it might look like to settle humans in a space colony. Based on the findings of an MIT study, a project was launched at the University of Karlsruhe in 1979 under the direction of Prof. Fritz Haller, which dealt with the “environmental design of prototypical space colonies.”

The aim was to design a “space colony” for 1,000 inhabitants, which would serve as their permanent home, workplace, and living space. Not a stationary base on another planet such as Mars, but an “orbital,” a huge spacecraft floating freely in space, in which 1,000 people would find an artificially created home. This presents not only a technical challenge, but also a challenge in terms of designing the social space and the social framework for coexistence on this island in space.

When they are substantial, such designs therefore always border on social utopias, the realization of which is likely to be far more probable over the next fifty to a hundred years than many people would like to believe today.

It was precisely at this time that OUBEY began studying architecture at the University of Karlsruhe. Meeting Fritz Haller and learning about the visionary projects he and his students were working on was a stroke of luck for OUBEY, with far-reaching consequences. He was inspired and enthusiastic about Haller’s project assignments, but above all by the free-spirited nature of his personality. OUBEY approached the task of designing a new type of folding chair by focusing not on the design of the chair itself, but on the mathematics of the joint. The result was what OUBEY called the rotation vector. Haller did not criticize him for this, but on the contrary found it highly interesting and suggested that OUBEY should continue working on it. However, he then decided to pursue the freedom of art. Nevertheless, OUBEY was never able to forget his encounter with Haller and his visionary projects.

The colonization of space is not only a historic challenge from a technical, architectural, and social-psychological point of view. It will be a test of the intelligence of the human species and its ability to actually learn from the experiences of its own history. Whether we are capable of doing so or whether we will instead export our outdated, destructive patterns of thought and action into space remains to be seen. Doubts about this seem justified.

However, cooperation between human and artificial intelligence could prove to be a unique historical opportunity and become a decisive success factor in this pioneering achievement. I would love to know how OUBEY would assess this today.

In the MINDSPACE Spark on the topic of “space colonies,” we learn why he was already convinced in 1992 that humans should move to space – and he tells us this in his original, recorded voice.

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There are six rooms in the OUBEY MINDSPACE. Each of them contains five different Mind Sparks, which in turn contain various impulses. Behind every Spark and every impulse is a story that tells us more about who OUBEY was and what he was like. I will tell these stories here.

Many thanks to the great team at Kubikfoto for their fantastic co-creation and their outstanding performance by the audiovisual production of the OUBEY MINDSPACE. Together we are delighted that the achievement of the OUBEY MINDSPACE has been awarded with three international awards, including the prestigous Red Dot Design Award 2025.