Sounds like a great place for all the progressives. They can go start their own “planet” so to speak & leave the rest of us alone.
Progressives are incapable of colonization, that’s why they are the ones left behind.
Progressives tried colonizing North America. They died like flies.
When collectivism was cast aside in favor of individualism, the colonies thrived. The hard conditions of the New World created a new kind of person.
Now the New World and its people are becoming indistinguishable from the Old World.
When the time comes to move from space exploration to space colonization, the hard conditions there will have the same effect of forging a new sort of person steeped in individualism as the colonization of the New World, provided they are in a position to break their ties as effectively as the colonists of North America did. If the colonists are living under the thumb of Old Earth, as many of the colonists in other parts of the New World were, then it will only be an extension of collectivism into space.
Which is will be will be determined by who goes, and why. It can either be colonists seeking a new way of life free frfom the entanglements that limit their freedom, or victims of mass resettlements performed as a stunt to demonstrate the power of the state. Sometimes one becomes the other, witness Australia.
But before anyone can go, either by choice or not, the basic techniques of getting and surviving there for short periods, at least, need to be worked out. Such is the role of human exploration. Sending humans is important, even when it is only a few, to begin with.
You can’t say you’ve been to the Grand Canyon if all you’ve done is look at pictures taken by a robotic camera. If someone else has been there, you have from them a testimony that the pictures don’t do it justice. Now we can get there by pulling the family car onto I-40. But first the explorers, then the builders had to come. 150 years ago people wondered why bother going. Now that we can easily, thousands do every year. And there are quite a few people who find it worthwhile living in Flagstaff and the surrounding area. The same goes for the Moon.
It’s hard to get there now, and will remain so if we keep destroying the infrastructure to do so each time we arrive. If we keep and build on it, however, we can improve it, open the way to more people, making it easier and easier until ordinary people can expect to go.
Meanwhile those who go earliest, to stay, will be in a position to thumb their noses at the powers that be here on Earth, and thrive in a place where others see only wasteland. Just as the North American settlers taught the folks of the Old World a thing or two, so would the first space colonists teach the people of Earth that it’s possible to live with greater personal responsibility, simpler laws, and industry—in a place so hostile that you can’t even get the air you breath for free. It might even be enough to make people wonder why they let their government tell them what sort of light bulbs they can use on the front porch.
But if we just sit here, that perspective will be lost. The Great Age of Exploration was started by governments on the make, but its benefits were realized by those who went to a free place to live.