2)Profit, slavery and missionary work is the main reason the New World was settled by Europeans. In North America, a few small scattered colonies were started by religious fanatics and misfits from the mother country, but this was an outlier. Even in N America, the primary reason people came here was for profit. Even the religious cults and sects and political rebels that came here fully expected to finance their holdings here with trade with the old world. As it turns out, growing dope (tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee, tea and spices all qualify for that description) quickly became the cash crop. Second was luxury goods, like furs, indigo, Aztec Silver and Inca Gold, and silks and ceramics from China.

3) The idea that space will allow us an escape valve for excess population just won’t wash. The cost of shipping one person to a space destination and supporting him there until he is productive is prohibitive. Even in our own history, the people who settled the New World were only a tiny part of the population of the Old, And unlike what we were taught in high school history class, the Colonies were a hell-hole. Only the desperate came here, and they traded their freedom for a ticket. Remember the indentured servants?

3)There are a few historical examples that may be more illustrative of interstellar colonization. The Greek city-states of Classical antiquity sent colonists throughout the Mediterranean and even the Black Sea. Many of these survived to become prosperous cities themselves, even into modern times, like Marseilles in France and Syracuse in Sicily. But these colonies maintained contact with their mother cities and traded with each other and with the locals.

The best model for interstellar colonization was the settlement of the Pacific Basin by the East Asians, the conquest of half the earth’s surface by a stone-age people in open boats. Check out “Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience” by Ben Finney for a thorough investigation of this idea. Hawaii was not discovered by Captain Cook; there was already a civilization there when he showed up. But keep in mind, Cook’s Endeavour was the latest thing in 18th century European maritime technology. The natives got there on canoes built with stone tools from the meager vegetable resources of tiny oceanic islands.

“The Discovery of Hawaii“, by Herb Kane.

http://herbkanehawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/EasyRotatorStorage/user-content/erc_15_1372463483/content/assets/slider_Discovery-of-Hawaii-0.jpg

Its the drivers and the dreamers who are pushing the boundaries and will hopefully take us into space. I suspect if it ever does happen colonies will self select out the complacent.

James SA Corey’s expanse series addresses this to some degree. Earth’s population is stagnant and living on “basic” If you want to work you have to test for it, otherwise its a life on basic. Elsewhere Mars and other asteroid colonies don’t have the luxery of supporting people on basic, therefore humanity has split into 3 basic camps (3 because Mars is as suspect as Earth to the other colonists).

I’m in the hoping we populate the solar system camp. I don’t think we need to look beyond unless FTL drives somehow spring into existence. The distances are just too vast.

Profit, slaves, and missionary work weren’t the only reason the new world was explored and populated. Several groups were fleeing oppressive governments and/or religious persecution. I could see all sorts of motives for trying to get off earth. Unfortunately its a death sentence. Until infrastructure and technology make living off earth sustainable, ain’t nobody getting off this planet. Personally I give us less than 50/50 odds of ever getting a self-sustaining colony started. We are just as likely to sophocate mankind on this planet as we are getting off. I’m normally an optimist, but the last 50 years of progress we’ve seen getting into space just isn’t all that inspiring.

Communities in space will be so isolated from one another, and be forced into such a state of independence, that human beings will once again be forced to develop independent cultures, different ways of looking at reality, different social structures. Just as an animal species can be forced to evolve into separate species when populations are isolated on islands, or separated by geographical barriers, so will human cultures. Human colonies on other worlds will become very different from those of their home worlds. I believe this has a survival value. Different kinds of people in different places means we will be introducing variety into culture. We are more likely to produce ways of looking at reality, and our own communities. A variety of responses to human problems makes it less likely the entire species will be wiped out by any one aberration or decadence.

Space travel will guarantee the survival of the species not just because no one single catastrophe will be able to wipe us all out, but because we will branch out into a variety of distinct and unique civilizations capable of dealing with a variety of challenges. Natural selection demands random variation.

And to carry the evolutionary biology analogy one step further, when separated populations encounter (or conflict with) one another they will cross-fertilize–the cultural gene pool will mix, just as the genetic material is mixed in sexual selection. This model worked for organic life as it evolved into every environmental niche on the planet, and it worked for humanity as it spread out of Africa and conquered the world.

But we have no guarantee that this same model, no matter how appealing it may be, can be scaled up to support a human diaspora across the galaxy. There may be sociological as well as physical reasons why this form of expansion is not possible. And even if it is, it is only inevitable that other species and civilizations will also be doing the same thing, and sooner or later our expanding sphere of influence will collide with theirs.

But that’s how I feel about it. And no matter how well thought out or justified it may be, it does not give me the right to impose on society a space policy extrapolated from those subjective opinions. Space travel, especially manned space travel, is extremely expensive in money, human talent and effort, and natural resources. How much of those limited resources should be allocated to it, and how our priorities should be selected should not be up solely to me. I have an axe to grind, I am prejudiced, no matter how well-informed I might think I am.

Permit me an illustrative example. I have always felt that any enterprise requiring a specific geographical location should be subordinate to certain other considerations. In other words, if you want to build your factory or your highway on an archaeological site or threatened wildlife habitat, then you should have the burden of proof of why it should be placed there for community benefit. Your personal profit is not a good reason; and neither is public benefit. It is a community decision, a social one.

But when I hear a proposed site for an observatory is being blocked because it threatens Indian artifacts or some nearly-extinct ground squirrel, I feel an exception should be made. My judgement cannot be trusted when my own parochial interests are at stake. Neither can anyone elses.

If private investors seek to develop space travel for their own personal profit, I have no objection. Indeed, they should be encouraged to do so. It can be argued that the exploration and settlement of the New World was driven by the profit motive, but there are no
slaves, furs or spices in this new frontier, no souls to be saved. Neither is there any rich farmland suitable for the cultivation of tobacco or sugar cane. Whatever commodities or riches to be found there have not yet been identified. And I suspect that until they are, the free market will play little or no role in space exploration, regardless of how enthusiastically its advocates lobby for it. So far, the only commercial opportunities offered by space are the contracts issued by spacefaring states. In this respect, space exploration is like war, there may be profit in it, but its all subsidized by the taxpayer.

I am convinced space travel is important, even essential, to human progress. But that is my opinion, my interpretation of reality, my subjective assessment of the objective facts which are available to all of us. They are neither obvious nor self-evident.

There seems to be two sexy topics which will drive our efforts at space exploration. The first is whether life exists elsewhere, and the second is the possibility of terraforming somewhere else. That it can’t be done, that it’s a foolish thought will not stop the speculation.

Life elsewhere in the Solar System, at least at one time, seems to be as sure a bet as is possible. How advanced it ever got to be will depend upon the time available to it. As far as we can tell it will have to be DNA – RNA based.

I think that there will be one more big push into space, one on the order of Apollo. That will settle the “life” questions, and then things will settle down.

Mankind could then tackle nuclear fusion and global warming, putting it’s money and efforts into that which demands more immediate attention. Space stations and shuttles are interesting, but I know of nothing repeat nothing significant which has flowed from those expenditures. I truly believe folks will see there is more here which has to be done before we have the money to spend on that which doesn’t have a definable, immediate return.

Good post. Thanks.