Economic

The economics of the early settlements will be dependent upon earth support for all supplies and manpower. Tourism will be extremely limited or non-existent as tourists tend to want to be pampered and to live in luxury abnormal to their daily living. The first colonies will not be in a position to pamper anyone and everyone will have an important task to perform for the survivability of the colony. Everyone else, tourists, will simply be using valuable resources without any return on investment to the colony.

Carrying a monetary system to the colonies would be an exercise in disaster. Air, water, food and shelter are important commodities on Earth and is not always life threatening if for some reason one or more were not available for a limited period. In a colony where lack of any one of those commodities due to lack of money would spell certain death within a short period of time. Being so “valuable”, it would be too easy for human nature to step in and make those commodities an expensive item to be bought and sold.

In the section Society/ Culture I indicated that we will need to recondition ourselves to bottle living. This includes developing human nature to the realities of bottle living. The concepts of status within the society being mostly based on money and power need to be left on Earth. They do not translate well to a hostile, confining environment.

When you consider the damage done to the human body caused by lack of normal gravity, a colonist is unlikely to be able to travel back and forth to Earth as easily as we travel back and forth to work now. A child born in a colony will likely never be able to travel to Earth as their musculoskeletal system would be compromised from birth.

Colonial parents would have no need of a paycheque being deposited in a bank account on Earth as they would not have access to it so the concept of colonial pay would be a mute point.

Financial benefits of a colony would be based more on developing technologies and resource extraction than simply on tourism or doing a days work for a days pay. Immigration to a colony would be based simply on need of the individuals skill set, not just someone able to afford the ticket.

Development of self would be a more valuable commodity than the accumulation of wealth and if all colonists are not working towards the communal good, the colony will fail.

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