Neither one is likely to happen any time soon. For self-sustaining bases, energy would probably have to be 10 to 100 times cheaper.It is already. Solar power is practical on the moon, unlike Earth. There's no atmosphere to absorb almost all of it like there is here.
Space travel is essential eventually. Not only does it give us other places to go if something happens to Earth, but it makes it practical to deflect junk that might hit us.
-Eric
Space travel is essential eventually. Not only does it give us other places to go if something happens to Earth, but it makes it practical to deflect junk that might hit us.
Solar power isn't quite the panacea when you are talking about two weeks of night per month. You really need cheap nukes. That isn't technically that hard, but politically it is nearly impossible.
Here, a lot of our needs are met by our environment by really neat von Neumann machines. ;) In other words, our air, water, and food are largely provided by solar power here already.
Go anywhere else and try to be self-sustaining and you will see what a huge problem that is. And being economically self-sustaining is a pipe dream right now.
To top that off, we can't even muster the political support or economic justification for the transportation infrastructure needed, much less the other problems.