As our housing crises worsens, we may need to look beyond our own solar system for the answer.
A Space Ship home in Chattanooga Tennessee (right) went on the auction block on EBay recently, and can apparently be purchased for a mere 100k! The home was built in 1970 on Signal Mountain, shortly after the cancellation of Star Trek (of course).
Built by the late Curtis W. King in 1970 the circular house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an entrance staircase that lowers and retracts with the push of a button.
Many such homes have been built around the U.S. over the years, but none churned out like those by the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. Suuronen designed and built a series of oval, flying-saucer-like houses (below left & right) the late 1960s. He called them "Futuro". Suuronen's houses were comfortably large but light enough to be carried to remote sites by helicopter.
The Futuro is approx. 11 feet high and 26 feet across. A hatch door in its lower half opened down to reveal steps, like the door of a small airplane, and led into a room outfitted with six plastic bed-chair combinations and a central fireplace slab, as well as a kitchenette, a bathroom and one small bedroom. The Futuro house was completely furnished and can accommodate 8 people.
Many say the demise of the Futuro was due to the high prices oil reached in the early 1970s', which sent the price of plastic skyrocketing. The Futuro, which was made of polyester plastic and fiberglass and which sold in the United States for between $12,000 and $14,000, was one of many experimental plastic houses at the time. It came in 16 pieces that could easily be moved by truck or helicopter and set up in a couple of days.
Others think it was the lack of closet space which really turned off most women, and of course the men could not convince them that this was a wise purchase. There are about 96 Futuro's out there somewhere and hopefully they can all be accounted for one way or another; although I've not personally seen one in my life.
So perhaps Futuro's the answer, no more McMansions with skyrocketing mortgages and property taxes out the yin yang. We can go back to simpler times, a time when a cozy little spacecraft home one could move from place to place was good enough. 
Maybe then, we could finally "Live long, and Prosper".
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