this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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These efforts are a massive waste of money nobody has and just distract us from the problems we are causing on the only planet in light years than can sustain us.
Where do people think the resources would come from move a population? At best, a few billionaires and some sex slaves.
I agree that large colonies are an enticing science fiction image that doesn’t look likely.
But we’ve proven that we can support an “international space station” to maintain a continuous scientific presence in space. A great next step is the same but on the moon. It seems quite possible with relatively little technical development. This is desirable to advance our technology, our science, our society, to use our imagination to look forward , to have hope, to see a positive future for humanity.
Here’s the problem with fixing local problems first: you can’t. You either stagnate, looking within, looking behind, looking down, and still have the same local problems or you take a portion of your civilizations product and also move everyone forward.
Here’s the problem with using those resources: it’s not enough to matter. The space program is a tiny percentage of the government budget, almost invisible next to what is needed to fix our problems. If you want to fix our local problems, it starts with social justice, environmental justice, safety nets, quality of life and most importantly equity in taxes, and greatly reduced income inequity. Elon musk’s wealth will soon be 40x NASA’s entire annual budget yet is barely taxed. If we were able to tax one persons wealth at a mere 2.5%, we could fully fund NASA at no cost to anyone else. Most of us pay a lot more than 2.5% of our income so why is he excepted?