Asklemmy

C) keep the planet we have habitable

Terraforming other planets would be astronomically more challenging than fixing our own planet and we don't seem to be able to get our shit together to do that. Even if we are capable of terraforming other planets, it would take many centuries at minimum. O'Neal cylinders are far more likely to work once we start industrializing the moon.

Bonkers question. Can't even figure out living on Earth sustainably and you want to talk about doing it without gravity, an atmosphere or an ionosphere?

If we can't manage to keep Earth's ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won't be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there's no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.

Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that's not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?

Fix our own planet first

Launch Billionaires into deep space without supplies

I don't think capital can sustain projects of this magnitude. Space is too harsh of an environment for delulu. We can hardly grapple with the idea that our actions on earth have consequences because of our condition. I like space stuff and I even like to create designs of starships, but I don't think we're in a position to reach for the stars just yet. Even if I'm wrong, we can't allow space fascism get started either. There is probably life out there and if space capitalism finds them, they'll try to pull another indigenous genocide and invent new forms of xenophobia to justify it.

None of our problems are technological. We have massive people problems. Building a new billions of dollar machine or trillions of dollar space station isn't going to disrupt the imperial core. The Gray Techno Fash won't suddenly become humanists because space.

Space life can be fun to think about, but techno futurism is a liberal fetish and tends to result in liberal fantasies if you don't decolonize your mind.

https://readsettlers.org tbh

Men will do anything other than go to therapy.

We should be exploring both options, exploration can often lead to unexpected discoveries and technological advancement.

How about we focus our efforts on unshittifying Earth first, eh?

Yes.

Seriously, we should be doing both as long term space habitats can serve as a way to reduce the cost of moving cargo around.

Space colonies. That way they can be dropped to earth to start colony independence wars.

If we can do B, A doesn't provide many benefits.

A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.

That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.

140k people is a small city.

I'm not sure that fitting Earthlike habitats in giant spaceships would make sense without limitless exponential growth. Wouldn't it be more feasible to put something on the surface of a planet?

No matter how advanced our technology gets, we are not going to get around the basic constraints on energy.

D) Move manufacturing and other dirty processes off planet and live here.

Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.