Comments on: Musk wants self-sustaining space colonies https://habitablezone.com/2026/05/31/musk-wants-self-sustaining-space-colonies/ Fri, 19 Jun 2026 21:15:44 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2026/05/31/musk-wants-self-sustaining-space-colonies/#comment-54927 ER Mon, 01 Jun 2026 04:19:01 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=108891#comment-54927 If you can devise a self-sustaining colony on another world, then it certainly should be possible to do so right here on earth. Move a group of people onto some isolated uninhabited land (a remote desert or island somewhere) and provide them with everything they need to get started. Allow only limited material support from that time onward, but allow unlimited communication with the outside world. It would be interesting to see if the colonists could gather sufficient resources from the immediate environment and process and distribute them in such a way that the colony survived. It would also be interesting to see if the colonists could develop a political system that could organize them to achieve that goal and not collapse due to social stresses. We've done this before, its how the New World was settled 500 years ago! There were setbacks, but it worked out all right in the end. Sure, on Mars, its lifeless, frigid, parched, airless, radiation-drenched, and the soil is poisonous, but we have all this groovy tech the Conquistadudes didn't have access to. And there are no hostile natives to get in the way. And if the experiment fails, we will at least be able to rescue most of the survivors. If you can devise a self-sustaining colony on another world, then it certainly should be possible to do so right here on earth.

Move a group of people onto some isolated uninhabited land (a remote desert or island somewhere) and provide them with everything they need to get started. Allow only limited material support from that time onward, but allow unlimited communication with the outside world.

It would be interesting to see if the colonists could gather sufficient resources from the immediate environment and process and distribute them in such a way that the colony survived. It would also be interesting to see if the colonists could develop a political system that could organize them to achieve that goal and not collapse due to social stresses.

We’ve done this before, its how the New World was settled 500 years ago! There were setbacks, but it worked out all right in the end. Sure, on Mars, its lifeless, frigid, parched, airless, radiation-drenched, and the soil is poisonous, but we have all this groovy tech the Conquistadudes didn’t have access to. And there are no hostile natives to get in the way.

And if the experiment fails, we will at least be able to rescue most of the survivors.

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