When you open a bakery, who do you sell the bread to? To the people in the city. That’s how you make money.
When you build rockets that can reach Mars, who do you sell to? And for what reason would anybody buy that product?
I believe this is where religion comes in. Ironically, religion (despite its very antique air about it) can aid capitalism to create a narrative around “human destiny is to reach for the stars” and “that was god’s plan for us all along” to nourish public sentiment towards spaceflight. This in turn creates a movement that is independent from short-term return-on-investments. Space settlements don’t have to return value as long as you can convince the public that you’re fulfilling the human destiny to spread throughout the cosmos that way.
The economics of space settlements are tricky.
When you open a bakery, who do you sell the bread to? To the people in the city. That’s how you make money.
When you build rockets that can reach Mars, who do you sell to? And for what reason would anybody buy that product?
I believe this is where religion comes in. Ironically, religion (despite its very antique air about it) can aid capitalism to create a narrative around “human destiny is to reach for the stars” and “that was god’s plan for us all along” to nourish public sentiment towards spaceflight. This in turn creates a movement that is independent from short-term return-on-investments. Space settlements don’t have to return value as long as you can convince the public that you’re fulfilling the human destiny to spread throughout the cosmos that way.