Professor O’Neill once appeared on television with the famous science-fiction author Isaac Asimov. The host asked Asimov a very good question: “Did anybody in science fiction ever predict [O’Neill colonies,] and if not, why not?” Asimov had a very good answer: “Nobody did, really, because we’ve all been planet chauvinists. We’ve all believed people should live on the surface of a planet, of a world. In my writing I’ve had colonies on the moon. So have a hundred other science fiction writers. The closest I came to a manufactured world in free space was to suggest that we go out to the asteroid
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