Humans in Space will be 100% expenditures for centuries.
For human habitation - the Moon and Mars are 100% of our options.
Photographing rocks and sand, and picking up rocks and sand, will generate 100% of our income.
Venus is super heated and has a deadly corrosive atmosphere.
Jupiter is a gas planet. Jupiter moons exist inside a deadly planetary radiation belt.
Bottom Line - once you leave Earth atmosphere, Job One will always be staying alive.
Job One has always been staying alive on the earth.
We live in a golden age where we seem insulated from the most common problems our ancestors faced:
1. finding/ growing enough to eat.
2. Keeping what you have safe from other humans.
For human habitation - the Moon and Mars are 100% of our options.
Already dropped the cost about 90%. Projected to drop the cost another 90%. From $5000/kg to $50/kg in 3-4 decades.
I am talking about orbital human habitations, not planets, moons, or asteroids...
Uranus is a hostile environment.
Most people don’t know our bodies don’t do so well
in outer space. God made it so we could not get very far away from home for lengthy periods.
Here’s the problem.
We can go to the Moon and Mars, but we can’t stay.
If we stay, we can’t come back.
If we don’t come back, we will die prematurely.
The weaker gravity seems cool at first, but our bodies will adapt to it by reducing the strength and size of muscles. We will probably end up shaped more like a giant pear. Going back to Earth would likely cause a heart attack just entering the Earth’s atmosphere. If you survive that, you’ll stroke out just walking out of the spacecraft.
Besides the gravity, Mars has a second concern.
THE DUST.
Imagine living in an environment full of microscopic dust particles, thinner and sharper than a razor blade, and an electrostatic charge that sticks them to everything, like a magnet and iron dust.
Maybe technology can find a way to deal with these problems in the future, but right now it is not possible.
We are a product of our environment. Change the environment and our bodies will adapt. Do we want that adaptation ? What will we look like ? Giant pears with foot long limbs ?
If we adapted and then tried to come back, we would die probably just entering Earth’s atmosphere. If we survived that, we would have a heart attack just trying to walk out of the spacecraft.
But I say go for it. If it was easy it would have no value.