Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly. However, spaceflight is getting cheaper by the year and is heading into a significant phase change related to costs. Soon the market will be dominated by partially reusable rockets. After a generation or two of improvements those reusable rockets will drive launch costs down by at least an order of magnitude if not two compared to today. That will make doing anything in space cheaper, and it's a fair bet t…
We're not going to see orbiting towns in 20 years. A town means a place where someone can spend their whole life. But living in zero-g for over a year causes serious health problems. We might be able to solve that with spinning habitats for artificial gravity but considering no one is making serious plans to build those it's going to take a lot longer than 20 years. As robotics and AI technology improves I expect ver…
This is still unknown territory, but already we have made significant progress developing routines that reduce bone decalcification on the ISS, and that's with pure microgravity.
Talking about the first orbiting station with 100 or 1,000 people.. these will not be comfortable places. They will be extremely poor destinations for a relaxing vacation. But people should be able to work there sustainably, in rotations, as part of their careers. It's still allowable to call those places towns in the same way people call aircraft carriers cities today.