Physicist Pekka Janhunen from the Finnish Meteorological Institute wants to skip bases on the Moon and Mars entirely. Instead, Janhunen suggests we build a giant habitation in orbit of Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

According to his draft paper, not only could we use material from the surface of Ceres to build the majority of the satellite, but we could also build a 636-mile-long space elevator to carry materials like nitrogen, water, and carbon dioxide from the surface to the satellite for construction and resupply.

The first group of colonists would number 50,000 or so.

Where do I sign up?