this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Knowing how hard something is can be a larger barrier than not knowing. But the main barrier preventing space colonies is the same thing preventing ocean colonies — "Why?". What motivation is there to settle space? Exploration and experimentation can be done for motivation of seeing if we can, but settling needs known payoff both for the settlers and the funders.
Asteroid mining is the only current suggested motivation for such a thing. And it's very possible that by the time we figure out asteroid capture, we won't need humans present for that work.
Asteroid mining and space industry is a huge reason, and it's the next logical step for humanity, especially since it means we can put dirty industry where nature and life doesn't exist.
There are absurd amounts of resources in space, a lot of which are difficult to access or rare on earth. In addition, space can give opportunities for new forms of manufacturing, from being able to control the level of gravity due to weightlessness, to being surrounded by vacuum. Two things which are either very difficult or impossible to recreate on earth.
You don't need to "capture" asteroids. You mine them in place and build heavy industry and everything you need in-situ. It's a hell of a lot easier to launch a new vessel off an asteroid than Earth. For some reason, people always think we'll be bringing these resources back to the surface of the Earth. That's wasteful, why do we want to throw them back into a gravity well?
We don't even need fancy fusion tech or anything for this to work, regular fission reactors can power things just fine. And the bonus is, you don't have to worry about where you put the waste. Just designate another asteroid in a clear orbit where it's most likely to not hit anything else for the next ten thousand years as a dumping ground, and mark it on the maps.