The visionaries and their private companies are planning Mars cities and asteroid mining instead.
Science fiction, especially space operas, hard science fiction, and the classic series, have dealt with the issue in a vast variety of ways and which variants will prevail in which time frame is the exciting question. And if it's more likely that the cultural and ideological barriers will increase with spatial separation by the vacuum between colonized planets.
Every visionary and thus also the group pursue different ideological and economical approaches to implementation and accordingly, different professional competencies, blind spots, and individual mistakes arise. The research must also be adapted to the core interests of the company so that diversity is further increasing. At the same time, however, the same developments are researched several times by different players and technologies, and even ideological, depending on the company's philosophy, the emphasis seems to be shifting additionally.
The sociological, political, and economic components play an underestimated role in comparison to the technology we would already have to do it, because not only ideological but also economic misconceptions can delay development. Whether the opponents see the despair of their faith or a threat to their economic concept, remains the same as the damage in the delay of development is done in both cases. These factors have led to inglorious deletions and budget cuts in space programs, especially in the previous government budgets. So much about the worldwide far too long starting phase for space programs.
The main focus of the book is on Musk, which may also be due to his natural extroversion and enthusiasm that are perfect to motivate investors, because about a quiet man like Bezos, who prefers to remain silent regarding his business, is just less to find as secrecy is prioritized to marketing and advertising. Speaking of a conflict of interest for the author to stay objective, because Bezos owns the Washington Post where the writer works, would be too far-flung and speculative. By contrast, Richard Branson and Paul Allen polarize less, though Branson is as compelling as Musk but his space tourism is not so visionary when put in relation to the other concepts.
Regarding the concepts, I am subjectively and intuitively with Bezos' opinion. First of all, the industrial infrastructure for mass production in space has to be created, because without asteroid mining and terraforming, Musk's concept of a Martian city is too risky both from the technological as well as the economic point of view. Industry over city building. Only when one can produce and grow independently, one has achieved real abundance and, above all, survivability. Besides, economic dependencies and extortions on Earth often led to conflicts in the past. Maybe a bad way to start with new colonies that start revolutions after decades. All already seen, didn't work well at all.
What delayed development in recent decades, apart from the lack of funding, was above all the lack of innovation. Just as incalculable as the breadth of inventions in the 21st century is their utilization for space travel. The main focus will first be limited to terrestrial use and its special applications until one can start manufacturing in larger capacities for space and especially in space. Nanomaterials, biotechnology, graphene, quantum computers, etc. will go the same way as industrial steel, microprocessors or plain mirrors. It takes time to perfect and automate the manufacturing process, but then everything can be produced 24 hours a day in each environment as soon as the physics and chemistry of different gravities until zero gravity are mastered.
Concerning monopolization, it is more extreme than ever. Each nation on earth could claim colonies with a few ships and some guns in the past, but other companies could produce similar products and compete with the first ones on the world market and in world wars. But acquiring the, partially patented, knowledge about space technologies via reverse engineering is almost impossible in the time necessary to be competitive.
The effect is compounded by revenues from resource extraction, terraforming, development, and occupation of new territories and asteroid mining. What strengthens the leading position is the advantage of being able to test all new technologies and devices directly on site, or in this case, the different vicinities and the extremely expensive laboratories and experimental setups, as on Earth, are not necessary. And whoever is first on Mars will most probably be the first to enter all other worlds, not to mention the prices that can be charged for all private and state customers.
Also, the corporations and states will use their legal departments or international courts to influence the newly defined laws in their favor and if one imagines the, in already very few hands, concentrated power on Earth, one can't rudimentarily imagine its extent in a few hundred years. The first person on a planet also has no reason to fear any controllers who look at her/his fingers. No witness, no judge, no crime, nobody hears you scream in space.
Only a few huge companies, often in cooperation with superpowers or large states and their military and exclusive supply contracts, will be able to do so. Thus, the exploration of infinite vastness will be endowed with finite and very small capacities and opportunities for all smaller companies, states, and individuals, similar to the happenings in many of the science fiction works that inspired and delighted the great visionaries as young people. And without which these endeavors might never have started so early on this massive scale. And in the retrospective out of a long time in the future, this delay could have been fatal in many ways, because as so often All eggs in a basket = Bad idea, is terrifyingly true.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books
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