Quote:
Originally Posted by Chip
Actually, I'm not in favor of a space station or a cloud city, which also requires breathable air that is not present on Venus or at any altitude and must be self-contained.
|
If we can terraform a planet, I expect that high closure life support systems would be extremely well developed. There would be a massive space infrastructure. Given that, there easily could be more people living in space structures than on worlds. In the Earth-Moon system alone, there could eventually be habitats with the equivalent of thousands of times the Earth's living area.
One of the reasons why I like Mars as a target is that, with its relatively small gravity well and two orbiting asteroid-like moons, I suspect it would make a great center for economic growth. I could see the Earth-Moon and the Mars systems as two of the solar system's economic hubs in a few centuries. I would think that Venus would be something tackled later, rather than earlier.