C) keep the planet we have habitable

If we can't manage to keep Earth's ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won't be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there's no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.

Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that's not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?

Bonkers question. Can't even figure out living on Earth sustainably and you want to talk about doing it without gravity, an atmosphere or an ionosphere?

Fix our own planet first

Yes.

Seriously, we should be doing both as long term space habitats can serve as a way to reduce the cost of moving cargo around.

Launch Billionaires into deep space without supplies

Men will do anything other than go to therapy.

D) Move manufacturing and other dirty processes off planet and live here.

I don't think capital can sustain projects of this magnitude. Space is too harsh of an environment for delulu. We can hardly grapple with the idea that our actions on earth have consequences because of our condition. I like space stuff and I even like to create designs of starships, but I don't think we're in a position to reach for the stars just yet. Even if I'm wrong, we can't allow space fascism get started either. There is probably life out there and if space capitalism finds them, they'll try to pull another indigenous genocide and invent new forms of xenophobia to justify it.

None of our problems are technological. We have massive people problems. Building a new billions of dollar machine or trillions of dollar space station isn't going to disrupt the imperial core. The Gray Techno Fash won't suddenly become humanists because space.

Space life can be fun to think about, but techno futurism is a liberal fetish and tends to result in liberal fantasies if you don't decolonize your mind.

https://readsettlers.org tbh

If we can do B, A doesn't provide many benefits.

A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.

That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.

140k people is a small city.

Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.

We should be exploring both options, exploration can often lead to unexpected discoveries and technological advancement.

How about we focus our efforts on unshittifying Earth first, eh?

Why? Nice planet we've got here, we could focus on preventing it becoming inhabitable due to climate change instead.

Space colonies. That way they can be dropped to earth to start colony independence wars.

Why not both?

I'm guessing B will happen first, just because we have so much more control of the environment, but we're still so far away from either one... Maybe I'll get to see the early stages sometime in my life.

Neither. We can't even unfuck Earth, where in that did we earn the privilege to pollute the cosmos?

All of the above. But start with cleaning up this planet. Build better / more sustainable and more diverse communities and energy production. Build arcologies in the arctic, deserts, oceans. Those are good “practice” for building the same off planet.

Porque no los dos?

I'm not sure that fitting Earthlike habitats in giant spaceships would make sense without limitless exponential growth. Wouldn't it be more feasible to put something on the surface of a planet?

No matter how advanced our technology gets, we are not going to get around the basic constraints on energy.