Life in space

we havent conquered space. not yet. we have sent some 20 men on camping trips to the moon, and the usa and russia have sent people to spend restricted lives orbiting the earth.

all these are marvellous technical and human achievements, but none of them involves living independently in space. the russians need food and even oxygen sent up from earth. and they havent gone far into space. it is only in fiction, and in space movies, that people spend long periods living more or less normally deep in space.

but in a couple of years this could have changed. there could be settlements in space that would house adventurers leading more or less normal lives.

the picture on this page shows where the settlers would live. it seems like science fiction but its not. it is based on plans produced by hard-headed people engineers and scientists, headed by gerard oneill of princeton university, summoned to a conference by nasa. they are...