I think the most depressing thing I've ever seen is The Expanse. It really highlighted what space colonization would be like with our current economic and social system.<p>I can only imagine the kind of hell that would be created by a Trillionaire with complete disregard for the people who work for him in a wasteland where his workers completely depend on him for even the air they breath.
About capitalism and space exploration:<p>Recommend my friend's novel Body Shop, about a mechanic on Deimos servicing the prospectors on the surface who endure mortal danger in search of immense wealth.<p>About the constant struggle to pay your 'O2 bond', your right to breath settlement air. Get behind too far and out the airlock you go.<p>Reads a little salacious at the start, apparently that's to put into sharp contrast the 'inner system' social norms with that of a 'roid-born person. No actual sex in the book; almost a romance but not all the meet-cutes and fake agony. Just real distress and mistreatment, from a society biased against vat-born 'artificial' humans.
<a href="https://www.elainemature.com/product/14134713/body-shop-ebook" rel="nofollow">https://www.elainemature.com/product/14134713/body-shop-eboo...</a>