Supposing everyone is 'rich' (ie, can sustain heavy-duty research into space colonization supply chains without beggaring nations), what incentive do people have to go on the highly risky business of space colonization? You've got to have that itch to hit the frontier and keep going.
Personally, I have no great desire (today) to go wandering around the stars and be involved in sifting data points regarding exoplanets for years while stuck in a small enclosed space. Leaving aside the pay and risk , I'd go flippin' nuts in such an environment. Other people can sustain that life - today's submariners and Antarctic researchers.
What I'd leap at would be the chance to homestead another Terra-like planet as a farmer/rancher/etc. That's its own form of high-risk grunt work, but the thought of exploring and walking about on an unexplored planet with clean air sounds like a great life. Better than cube work, at least. :D
Alas, even given a reasonable form of interstellar travel for human physiological constraints, the chances of finding a target planet with an oxygen atmosphere but no pre-existing biosphere is very low. And the question of human food chain compatibility with alien biospheres is ... well, there's a very good chance that they would find us crunchy to snack upon, rather than vice versa. (I'm thinking at a microbiological level. H. G. Wells hit the hammer on the nail with "War of the Worlds" in more ways than one.)
The idea of finding a ready-made habitable planet somewhere out there isn't science fiction, it's pure fantasy.
You don't colonize the new world by paddling across the Atlantic in a dugout canoe with a few of your friends, expecting to rent an apartment in midtown Manhattan. We have a lot of work left to do on this planet first.
Supposing everyone is 'rich' (ie, can sustain heavy-duty research into space colonization supply chains without beggaring nations), what incentive do people have to go on the highly risky business of space colonization? You've got to have that itch to hit the frontier and keep going.
Personally, I have no great desire (today) to go wandering around the stars and be involved in sifting data points regarding exoplanets for years while stuck in a small enclosed space. Leaving aside the pay and risk , I'd go flippin' nuts in such an environment. Other people can sustain that life - today's submariners and Antarctic researchers.
What I'd leap at would be the chance to homestead another Terra-like planet as a farmer/rancher/etc. That's its own form of high-risk grunt work, but the thought of exploring and walking about on an unexplored planet with clean air sounds like a great life. Better than cube work, at least. :D