We feel certain that humanity will settle outer space -- a lifeless, hostile void -- and yet we have made little attempt to build cities under the ocean, where there is wildlife, water, oxygen, and mineral riches that are not hurtling a dozen miles per second far outside Earth's gravity well. Is our excitement about outer space no different than Alvin Toffler's paean, in 1970's Future Shock, for the "frontier spirit" of a coming "New Atlantis" -- "adventure, danger, quick riches... fame" -- leading to "ocean-oriented subcultures" and "mystical sects [who] celebrate the seas."

Find out in this week's episode, where Biff and Betty consider when humanity might have the technologies to build an O'Neill Cylinder -- a space station large enough to have its own weather and a landscape mimicking the surface of the earth -- as well as what might motivate us to make such an enormous investment.

Read the full prediction: First O'Neill Cylinder Construction