Like wars erupting over FTL rather than sharing it, because the country or a corporation who would be the first to have such technology stands to have the potential to colonize distant planets.
Like wars erupting over FTL rather than sharing it, because the country or a corporation who would be the first to have such technology stands to have the potential to colonize distant planets.
There’s much more to colonizing a planet than just traveling there. It’s a massive ugly investment that may never turn a profit.
For example we have technology allowing travel to the moon, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to colonize it any time soon.
Colonizing other continents was also both hella dangerous and expensive at the time.
I think there’s a lot of factors, including where the FTL transit time, potentia habitability of the destination, and conditions back on Earth.
There’s a big difference between “hey we’re sending you lot on a trip with at least a year transit time to a potentially hostile destination” versus “go ahead and start building, if you need anything call Tony and he’ll have a guy there by Tuesday”.
If FTL were a thing, or even near FTL with long-term habitability I don’t totally see something like the Mormon Ark-Ship (from the Expanse) being funded by a wealthy enough group.
They are talking about setting up moon colonies soon though, that’s what the artimis missions are building up to. Afaik China is doing the same thing.
Bases, not colonies. Colony implies you can start family there. That won’t be the case for a long time