5 May 2017 - space colonization 5

Historically, colonies are self-funding. The American colonies, for example, were profit-making investments to bring wealth to Britain (it worked for a while). If we believe Elon Musk’s estimate that it would take a million people on Mars for a self-sustaining colony, then space colonization cannot be self-funding for decades, after the colossal investment to move that million. And P.T. Barnum knew that you can’t distort reality for all the people all the time.