Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
Oh, sure. Colonies often end up eventually becoming their own country. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually get to some sort of Expanse like scenario with different factions, effectively nations and nation-like groups with substantial independence. A lot of that is just distance. If you're a several month trip away, you end up having to make decisions locally.

That's some distance away, though. Right now, most spaceflight is, in practice, satellites, almost all of which are orbiting earth and serving needs for people here. Thus, spaceflight remains very earth-centric. I'd love for us to get to that sci-fi world, but we have a lot to do before we make that leap.

I do hope we build such a station. It's possible to do it even within the limits of Starship-sized fairing spaces by attaching a counterweight to a station by a cable and spinning it up. This is mechanically more complex than a non-orbiting station, and it makes docking, etc more challenging, but I think it's something we probably need to start working on.

That's one of those big barriers to orbital colonization. So long as folks have the muscle atrophy issue even with fairly routine workouts, it's a big obstacle to living there.
I would say it's long past the time for that. The Apollo Program was 50 years ago. So far, we've sunk Skylab and are about to sink the ISS, space colonisation shouldn't be science fiction at this point, but it still is. Space: 1999 was a TV series in the 1970s. We still aren't anywhere near that advanced in space colonisation.

I don't think anyone's arguing that Dune or the like is specifically predictive, merely that conflict is fairly likely. It's existed in all contexts, predicting the end of it is the sort of prediction that has happened a great many times and has always disappointed. It'd be great if it happened, but it is a very unlikely prediction, and expecting humans to keep being, well, human, is a pretty likely bet.
Sure, evolution and natural selection is what it is, there will always be competition, but we ought to be in space in a much bigger way than we are by now. By the time we get to the far side of the galaxy, the people on one side won't be able to breed with those on the other side, but they'll all be earth-life (supposing we don't meet aliens, which is an unknown).