Most space stations in science fiction serve predictably as stopovers for travellers, laboratories, factories, or military bases. But some envisioned facilities offer intriguing ideas for builders and residents of future space stations. Arthur C. Clarke's "The Lion of Comarre" (1948) proposes a space station as the headquarters for a world government, Michael Moorcock's "The Fireclown" (1965) creates an orbiting monastery, Patricia A. McKillip's "Fool's Run (1987) designs a space prison, and Dean Ing's "Down and Out in Ellfive Prime" (1980) offers a comfortable home for the elderly. Space stations could protect endangered species, as in the film "Silent Running" (1971), or house bio-engineered creatures, like the dinosaurs recreated in Robert Silverberg's "Our Lady of the Sauropods" (1980). For tourists, science fiction suggests space hotels, satellite casinos, World Fairs, and summer camps for youngsters. Innovative space activities include zero-gravity dancing, as in "Spider" and Jeanne Robinson's "Stardance" (1979); exotic sculpture, as in Fritz Leiber's "The Beat Cluster" (1961); and "flying" with artificial wings, as in Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's "Beyond the Planet Earth" (1920).

Moving farther into the future, science fiction imagines space stations as essential homes for humanity should Earth become uninhabitable, as in Thomas M. Scortia's "Earthwreck!" (1974). Arguing that space life represents the next logical step in human evolution, Bruce Sterling's "Schismatrix" (1985) depicts strange new forms of humanity evolving beyond Earth, while Terry Greenhough's "Thoughtworld" (1977) suggests that psychic powers might increase in space. Space stations themselves might evolve to become generation starships travelling to distant stars, as in Don Wilcox's "The Voyage that Lasted Six Hundred Years" (1940); or series of orbital stations might be connected by cables to Earth and each other to form an immense inhabited ring around the planet, as in Clarke's "The Fountains of Paradise" (1979). Clearly, when writers imagine what humanity might someday do with space stations, the sky is not the limit!

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