(Upvoted for visibility, not agreement.)<p>Contrast this excerpt from the article<p><i>[S]pace is simply not a good place to go. It has no history, culture, museums, or restaurants. The celestial nihility is immensely boring and perpetually unpleasant. The scale is all wrong for us. Your accommodations, at least in our lifetimes, would be something like a glorified camper trailer, and your food would at best rise to the level of a TV dinner. [...] Visiting space would be the most miserable road trip ever devised, except when the vehicle breaks down, you die.</i><p>with the following quote<p><i>Kirk: You know if Spock were here, he'd say I was an irrational, illogical human being for going on a mission like that. [pause] Sounds like fun!</i>, from <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations</a><p>I suppose these two individuals, one real, the other imaginary, have vastly different ideas of what a fulfilling life should look like. So do I.
Population goes up, useful land does not. That’s why we’re paving suburban farmland and cutting and burning rainforests and even going to war. I agree that space makes Antarctica and Death Valley look inviting, and major settlements in those places would be good practice, but how feasible is that while we’re limited to a share of the energy and resources readily available on Earth?