There is also strong material (EFTE) which is 100 times lighter than glass and which can lower costs by 4 times. Very large geodesic domes could cover several square miles on Mars. Mars has one third of the gravity on Earth, so dome cities could be very large there.

A large "shell" can be used to encase an alien world (asteroid or moon), keeping its atmosphere contained long enough for long-term changes to take root.

There is also the concepts where a usable part of a planet is enclosed in an dome in order to transform its environment, which is known as "paraterraforming".

Paraterraforming - The worldhouse concept

The 'worldhouse' concept of paraterraforming can be formulated within the existing boundaries of technological knowledge and can provide a quasi-unconstrained global habitable environment at significantly lower levels of materials requirement and economic cost. Construction can proceed on a modular basis. A coarse-grained assessment of the possibilities of paraterraforming Mars is presented. It is suggested that the establishment of a fully habitable worldhouse environment on the planet Mercury would be a much less difficult undertaking than taerraforming Venus and could be economically important for the human exploitation of the solar system.