The High Frontier Timeline 2010

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
In 1976 Gerard K. O'Neill published a book called The High Frontier that discussed the establishment of free floating Space colonies in the near future. The first such colony was called Island One, a sphere 500 meters in diameter that rotated to produce a simulated 1 Earth gravity on the inner surface of the sphere at the equator and diminishing as you climbed the curve of the sphere leading to the polar axis of its spin. This space colony was further more bracketed by a series of ring-shaped greenhouses where the food of the colony was grown. The space colony was located either at L4 or L5 in Earth's Moon orbit, or it was simply in a high orbit around the Earth, placed so that its residents can assemble and service a constellation of giant Solar Power Satellites orbiting Earth above the Equator in Geosynchronius orbit, that is a 24 hour orbit matching the Earth's rotation so that each satellite stays above a fixed point on the Earth's equator and beams power via microwaves to a receiving station on the Earth's surface.

Now my challenge to you is can you come up with a plausible timeline begining in 1976 that ends with the establishment of an Island One Space colony by 2010? About the timeline Gerard O'Neill had in mind?
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
1976: Gerold R. Ford Chooses ex-NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine as his running mate.
October 10, 1976: Gerold R. Ford dies when he is run over by a Golf Cart at a Golf outing. Thomas O. Paine becomes the defacto Republican Presidential Candidate, gives a stirring speech.
October 15, 1976: Jimmy Carter loses his voice after coming down with strepp throat, taken to hospital Walter Mondale fills in at the Presidential Debate
November 1976: Thomas O. Paine wins handily as Walter Mondale promises to raise everyone's taxes, Republicans also sweep the House and all contested Senate Seats as the Democratic Candidates prove inept.
January 20, 1977: President Thomas O. Paine sworn in as President of the United States, promises in his inaugural speech to return to the Moon, and send Men to Mars.
February 15, 1977: Gerard O'Neill sworn in as the new NASA Administrator.

How's that for a start?
 
Top