# Opal Mining Town in Australia #

OK, I'll give this a shot.

Coober Pedy is a hostile environment. While it would be entirely
possible to live there in prefab houses made in Adelaide, Sydney, or
elsewhere, with everything being imported from outside, this would be
too expensive. Also, everything would have to be made specifically
for the hot, barren environment.

Instead, the opal miners used the very bedrock of Coober Pedy to
manufacture their homes. They were using digging equipment anyway, so
they used it to dig out homes. They used the resources of the land to
form the structure of the house, and the wealth of the land (those
lovely opals) to afford furnishings and whatever has to be imported.

In addition to opal mining, Coober Pedy has a tourism industry. Not a
very big one, but the community is unusual enough to support a hotel,
several shops, and a restaurant or two.

Even traditional games, such as golf, can be enjoyed, though they have
to be modified (it's too hot to play during the day and there's no
grass, so they play at night with glow-in-the-dark golf balls and
carry a hunk of turf around with them).

The parallels to space habitation are obvious.