Redesigning O Neill cylinders

> Yes, but the whole point of the Island designs was to create a *nice*
> place
> to live. If the inside is covered in factories instead of trees I'm not
> sure
> many people would want to live there. ;)

That's true, but its most likely the first habitats will be more in the
"dark satanic mill" (ie factories) mode than the O'Neill vision simply for
economic reasons....as someone said earlier, once these have built all the
supporting infrastructure the "lifestyle" habitats will piggyback off them.
If I had a sequence it would be:

1. Experimental space stations prove the basic technology
2. Countries collaborate on research stations to do space research and
prototype space fabrication (Lagrange University?)
3. Extension of this to build exploratory robotic spacecraft launched from
Lagrange
4. Emergence of factories for very light high value things that are needed
on Earth
5. Start of factories building commercial robotic spaceships to send to
areas of high wealth potential
6. Start of building manned space vehicles to send to areas of high wealth
potential and start basic mining/fabrication stations there
7. Start of building Habitats on Lagrange points
8. Start of building Habitats to move to the new mining/fabrication colonies
9. Start of building Habitats to move to support new
exploration/mining/fabrication efforts where its easier to have people first
(eg a colonisation of mars surface)
10. Colonisation of nearby worlds surfaces

I guess someone's worked this out earlier & better but that would be my
guess

Alan