Simply fantastic! Cities on Asteroids out in space! Check out what NASA did

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Asteroids have always terrified humans. After all, they were the reason behind one of the biggest known mass extinctions on the planet. And scientists realize that what happened to the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period could one day also happen to humans. That is why NASA recently conducted its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in order to build a defense system against asteroid strikes. But what if, instead of being afraid, we could live on these asteroids out in space and go where no man, or woman, has gone before? While it may seem preposterous to even imagine it, but that is what a new study is claiming. And to make it interesting, NASA appears to have commissioned designs for such habitats way back in the 1970s. Read on.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space and was done as a thought experiment. It is essentially a theoretical hypothesis and the paper recognizes that we do not have the necessary technology to make it possible at present or in the near future. However, one thing the research paper highlights is that the concept might actually be possible.

“Obviously, no one will be building asteroid cities anytime soon, but the technologies required to accomplish this kind of engineering don't break any laws of physics,” physics professor Adam Frank, who worked on the project, said in a press conference.

In fact, even NASA believes in it. In 1972, physicist Gerard O'Neill drew up the schematics of a space habitat that would let humans live in space. This study is actually a twist on that design and it adds some modifications to it.

Primarily where the study modifies O'Neill's design is by reducing the amount of material needed to be flung into space and replacing it