[endoblast]

Author is clearly not a happy bunny.

Some people may be motivated by a wish to escape other people, but many will want to go to space because it's so cool. In other words: for adventure, romance and blazing a trail for other people to follow.

Having the right spirit and the right motivation creates mental well-being, not material or social conditions. By those standards, medieval life was far worse than today, but I don't think the people then were less happy or less motivated than people today. Quite the reverse.

[mandmandam]

> Author is clearly not a happy bunny.

Scouring the article I see no evidence for this claim whatsoever.

> Having the right spirit and the right motivation creates mental well-being, not material or social conditions.

The right spirit and motivation isn't going to help you avoid chromosome & telomere damage, or chronic lack of sleep.

Wouldn't it best to know the risks (and smells) going in? Because that's what the author is laying out. The author isn't stopping you from going into space, just putting the facts out there.

[cosmic_cheese]

I don’t think anybody who’s serious about off-planet habitation is shirking the risks. They’re just confident that the problems can be solved one way or another and are trying to get the ball rolling so that all the required systems are in place to enable iterating on solutions. That way, when the technology is ready we can just go instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting for tech and systems to arrive.