Even "unoccupied" land is owned by someone, there's no frontier to satisfy our exploratory, expansionary urge. There's no challenge to travel, pretty much anyone can get more or less anywhere inhabited on the planet in less than 72 hours if they have a budget on the order of a middle class American's vacation.
That's why I think we need to take colonizing nearby objects in space seriously. It gives us an expansionary purpose to satisfy that genetic urge.
We've run out of space.
Even "unoccupied" land is owned by someone, there's no frontier to satisfy our exploratory, expansionary urge. There's no challenge to travel, pretty much anyone can get more or less anywhere inhabited on the planet in less than 72 hours if they have a budget on the order of a middle class American's vacation.
That's why I think we need to take colonizing nearby objects in space seriously. It gives us an expansionary purpose to satisfy that genetic urge.