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Found a few marvellous 1970s illustrations of space habitation
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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I think the issue for space colonization is there's no real practical reason to do it beyond that it's cool and interesting. There's still absolutely tons of largely unused land in deserts, polar climates, and even the ocean that are far more accessible and habitable than space is.
Cool and interesting seems like two amazing reasons to do it.
I hate that we live under a mental paradigm that the only thing that matters is efficiency, ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Shit, the nazis were super efficient, doesn't mean they had a good thing going.
Take one more step, and you've got it. Efficiency only matters because it maximizes PROFIT, and Profit is all that matters. We are Ferengi, at our core.
So the reason to do it is because uncontrolled, unregulated profit-gouging has made the Earth literally unliveable. We haven't reached that point yet, but we are certainly on that path, and those who would protect us from the inevitable outcome, won't even acknowledge that the problem exists, calling it a hoax, and even forcing their alternative hoax to be governmental dogma.
It seems like those who control the money have already decided that this is our future, so it's perfectly acceptable to destroy this environment, in order to create enough profit to build the next environment, which will be reserved for the Sociopathic Oligarchs.
Also, it could travel to find distant worlds to colonise
(It'd have to accelerate slooooowly though)
Due to low gravity and few pathogens, it might be something people will do for retirement. You can probably expand the time of healthy active years well into your 80/90ties that way.
Maybe... or would your body simply rot away faster since you aren't using it as much? I would be inclined to think the latter.
I suspect they'd need to do some power lifting to avoid accelerated osteoporosis in the lower gravity, as the bones do indeed require to be put under strain and shock to stay healthy.
Depends on how active you are and how low the gravity is. A lower gravity like on Mars would be probably be more helpful than harmful for elderly people.
Thank god that isn't a thing on Earth....
However bad it is here I'm sure it would be much worse in space, considering astronauts have all their muscles atrophy even with a pretty intense workout regime.
Everybody will just move around on hover-recliners, like in Wall-E.