Explore, definitely, though that's speaking as a space enthusiast. I think one is bound to have enthusiasm for something that one is especially interested in. And I think myself that it is right that we decide this collectively, so everyone is involved in the decision, not just the enthusiasts.
Colonizing - less sure about that. Because first, there is nowhere anywhere near to Earth that is anything like as hospitable as Earth. So that's a bit like asking, should we colonize Antarctica? With current technology, and given that we have plenty of space on Earth that's far more habitable than anywhere we know of in space, I'd say no, there's no point in that. Any colony also would surely be bound to fizzle out once people realize how hard it is to live there.
Settlements, though, yes. Like in Antarctica, scientific bases. I don't think we need a "push" to colonize space. I think that as we explore it, then settlements will arise naturally. And if we do find a way to make large scale closed systems in space, we may colonize it also. But there's no great benefit in rushing into that.
Indeed a future with space colonies might be less stable than one without. Especially a big push that lead to colonies with millions of residents.
There's no way space colonies can be as easy to build as houses on Earth in the near future. So the only way this can happen is if Earth subsidizes the colonies. For instance they could be built by wealthy organizations that earn trillions from selling metal to Earth. That could lead to a future where it is possible to build space colonies quite easily. The companies that mine the asteroids would be earning plenty to pay for space colonies maybe for thousands, even millions of people.
But they would be doing that by taking resources from Earth in exchange for the metals. The amount of work into the project. Electronics manufactured on Earth. Spaceships manufactured on Earth.
Could be a future where the people on Earth are in poverty subsidizing the people in space. That I think would not be a good future.
What's more, space colonies would have high technology, with fast spaceships. And a spaceship crashing into a space colony at kilometers per second - the colonies would be very fragile.
So a future with space colonies has to be a future which is also very peaceful. If you had the likes of ISIS in a space colony, with all the technology they have - they could destroy other space colonies easily, with the only defense, to bury your colony deep underground. I think a future with battling space colonies living in deep underground shelters in the Moon etc would be a dystopia I'd not like to see happen.
It would not be possible to survive by escaping into the woods or caves or whatever when attacked either, because there is nowhere out there with breathable air. If your house is destroyed on the Earth, you may well have got away in time and can build again. If your habitat is destroyed in a space colony, there would probably be no survivors, not from a deliberate attack even just with a deliberately crashed spaceship hitting the habitat. Even if you were out doing an EVA at the time in a spacesuit or lunar rover or whatever, you'd just survive as long as your oxygen lasted and then you've had it.
So - we need to be peaceful first, at least in space, before we get to the point where we have millions of people in space. Otherwise space colonies will destroy each other through wars similar to those on Earth.
We do have peaceful co-operation in space at present with the Outer Space Treaty. But if we had millions in space, quickly, then that agreement might erode in various ways and I think we don't want to rush into such a future.
And unless our technology advances hugely, I also think that a future where there is a reasonable balance between Earth and space colonies would have many more people on Earth than in space - reflecting how much easier it is to live on Earth. Nothing we can do can make Earth less habitable than anywhere in space, and ideas of terraforming other planets are not practical over centuries and many doubts and questions about whether they would work over longer timescales.
I think it is possible, but would happen slowly, and that slow is good here. Done slowly, we can adapt and find out how to live in space safely, and then how to have even large numbers of people in space safely, living together in enough harmony not to destroy each other.
And as for going into space to escape Earth- we'd bring all our problems with us. If we go into space as warlike people, then it actually endangers the Earth because space colonies could easily gang up and drop asteroids on Earth if there was some conflict - or threaten to do so. E.g. in that dystopia future scenario of wealthy and selfish space colonists trying to get poor Earth inhabitants to do things they don't want to do.
And I think the same applies even more so to the galaxy as a whole. We should not even think about colonizing another star, until we can see right into the future, what the implications would be of a spreading wave of self replicating humans through the galaxy. Self replicating robots can be programmed, have controls to stop them going out of hand. Self replicating humans though, if spread through a galaxy beyond light speed distance - there is no way we can put that genie back in the bottle, and the results could be disastrous to the galaxy.
Exploring just fine. Small settlements, great. Robotic exploration, great. With self replicating technology we could have robotic explorers around every single star in the galaxy reporting back to us eventually for future generations. But - colonizing - I think we must step slowly there and not get too carried away.
which originated as my answer to a couple of questions on quora:
About the Author
