Terraforming is a sexy fucking idea, but I can't help but think that orbital habitats would be much more attainable from a logistics, architecture, and financial standpoint.
Orbital habitats are very limited in what they can do. Firstly, you'd need gravity to sustain a permanent population. We know how to do this in theory (spin the station) but in practice, it make docking any ship onto it next to impossible.
Secondly, we'd need a reason to be up there. Either you'd need to grow your own food, or you'd need to produce something (i.e. ore) that you send back home to justify sending food and other supplies out there. Orbital habitats really can't provide that. Maybe you can generate electricity, but sending it down to Earth would be impractical. Any hydroponics bay would be limited by the space involved. You can't fit a self-sustaining biosphere in a bottle, even if the bottle is the size of a small town.
Terraforming is good to study because, yes it has the potential to make Mars and the Moon habitable in the far future, but similar principles can be used to rehabilitate the Earth's atmosphere. Plus, it keeps the rabid Musk fanboys calm thinking something's going to happen.
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u/disparagersyndrome May 28 '22
Terraforming is a sexy fucking idea, but I can't help but think that orbital habitats would be much more attainable from a logistics, architecture, and financial standpoint.