Will it ever be economically feasible to colonize the solar system?

[Razgovory]

Cause I was bored, I looked up shit on Antarctica the other day.  It occurred to me that Antarctica is a lot like Mars in some respects and I wondered if current human activity in Antarctica is what the future of manned space travel would look like.  It's fairly easy to travel to Antarctica and research stations dot the continent, but nobody actually lives there.  There are no towns or anything like that.  Part of that is by treaty, but more importantly towns form around some sort of point of economic interest.  A river, a mine, some farm land etc.  There really isn't much of economic interest in Antarctica.  I mean, you could mine there, but nobody does it because it's too expensive.  Would Mars be the same?  I've heard of an isotope of Helium that could possibly be used in a fusion reactor and is more common on the moon then it is on the Earth, but it's still pretty rare.  If such a reactor were possible, and an effective way to collect it were developed I suppose it's possible that you could have a city on the moon.

[Zanza]

Ever is a long time. The expensive thing about spaceflight right now is leaving Earth's gravity, there may be different challenges with permanent habitats on the Moon or Mars. If we can find a cheap way to transport stuff to orbit and to leave orbit and accelerate a lot, then it might become economical. As it is, it would be a hyper-expensive experiment.

[Eddie Teach]

It will be attempted.

[Razgovory]

Oh, I expect ever to be up within 50 years.  For me at least.   But the reason I brought up Antarctica is becomes it's not that difficult to reach, it's just there isn't anything there.  So nobody tries to build cities on Antarctica.

[Tamas]

Industrialization will happen, unless our civilization collapses soon. Maybe eventually we will terraform Mars, but a more realistic colonization scenario is the one of orbital industrial colonies around major bodies.

[Zanza]

If you think about private investors ever putting up colonies somewhere for economic interests, then I very much doubt that. Earth is a pretty big place and it will almost certainly always be more economical to mine stuff here or find an alternative if a certain mineral is not available here. I imagine it's much more economical to mine the deep seas or Antartica before you even send a single spaceship to the Moon, another planet or an asteroid. I wouldn't know, but I doubt there is any material so rare and so important that it could make spaceflight to mine it valid.

And everything else? Manufacturing in zero-G earth orbit might make sense for some stuff. No idea. But you don't need to fly to another planet for that. The only service I can think about is tourism. Maybe offshore banking. Agriculture is obviously right out as that will always be more economical on Earth.

[Razgovory]

I'm assuming a capitalist venture as opposed to some kind of Soviet style show piece.  I don't know if orbital factories would have an advantage over terrestrial factories.  I imagine that labor would be expensive unless we can find a Space Bangladesh.

[Monoriu]

Someone will try.  People don't always do things for economic reasons.  A lot of people will do it simply to enter the history books.  Humans didn't land on the moon for economic reasons.  We will only find out for sure if it is economically feasible after people have tried it. 

[Zanza]

I'm assuming a capitalist venture as opposed to some kind of Soviet style show piece.  I don't know if orbital factories would have an advantage over terrestrial factories.  I imagine that labor would be expensive unless we can find a Space Bangladesh.

It would obviously be nearly 100% robotic. No point to send humans to an orbital factory except for building and maintaining it - and even that would probably be mostly robotic. 

[Razgovory]

Someone will try.  People don't always do things for economic reasons.  A lot of people will do it simply to enter the history books.  Humans didn't land on the moon for economic reasons.  We will only find out for sure if it is economically feasible after people have tried it.

Those people are governments.   Like the research station in Antarctica.  They really aren't colonization.

[Josquius]

it' 'll never solvepopulation problems on earth. the analogy to say colonisation of the Americas will be very weak indeed.
agreed that for a long while it'll be more like Antarctic science bases or off sea oil rigs. professionals go there for a short stay to do their thing then go home. eventually though you will get it comfortable enough that there will be (sane) people wanting to be lifers.
then the debate comes on whether it would be right to allow them to have kids. on the moon such would be utterly outlawed I' d imagine. on mars.....it's a tricky one and may take a while put eventually colonial romanticism should win out

[The Minsky Moment]

Extra-terrestrial mining could become attractive if future persons were to place much higher values on environmental integrity.    Extra-terrestrial sites could also be used as disposal sites for extremely toxic materials like nuclear waste that create big NIMBY problems on earth.

[Tamas]

Just think of spices. They were extremely expensive luxury ingredients for centuries. Trading them was very problematic and dangerous.
Now you buy them for pennies at every corner.

Industrialization of the solar system will happen and will be a profound change to a lot of stuff.

[garbon]

While I hear what you are saying, Tamas, I still think spices are overly expensive and I generally don't find them in stories for mere pennies.

[CountDeMoney]

The earth has only so much of finite natural resources. 
It'll happen, just not for a couple more centuries.