Is that sarcasm? Gee, why would anyone want to colonize the "New World". Imagine the costs....yeah, it was expensive in the beginning. And some of the early colonies were either wiped out or suffered tremendous loss of life. But that's not necessarily the point. Many early colonists were what we might today call "cults", both religious and political.
Believe me, if we could get the costs down to around 500,000 per head for a one way trip that would be self sustaining, there would be plenty of volunteers and they would self fund. Of course, only a tiny percentage of the population would be willing to make a one way trip with a strong possibility of death at the far end, but even .001% of 280 million is too large a number to ship if we spent the next 20 years building ships and launching them.
Why would a person aspire to climb to the top of Everest?
BECAUSE IT'S THERE!
Some of us are not content to simply "eat-n-crap" day in and day out from the day we're born until the day we die. We yearn to see great things done.
Fortunately for pragmatics such as yourself, however, we are few in number and becoming fewer.
I can still vividly remember the morning after I had seen Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon in 1969. I was a sharecropper's kid, and my parents had allowed me to stay up quite late to witness that historic event. I recall when I woke up that morning it felt almost like Christmas - I awoke into a new reality in which man now travelled among the stars.
Then, turning on the television that morning to bask in the glory of the previous night's grand accomplishment I was greeted - on all stations - by news reporters asking a single question. "Why spend money to go to the moon when there are hungry people in our country?"
I wish I could describe to you how, on that morning, a young boy's enthisiasm for the future was shattered by a handful of socialist, nay-saying scum. On that day I saw this nation's greatness descending into oblivion as predictably as a satellite which just didn't quite reach escape velocity.
I'm older now - and since those days have left the cotton patch to walk the halls of Johnson Space Center numerous times myself, and known many of the fine, dedicated people who comprise our space program. And I find myself not so concerned that we Americans will achieve great things, probably because I feel deep inside that the next great power (China?), will step up to the plate to fulfill those youthful dreams.