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?