Space colonization is the establishment of self-sufficient human settlements outside Earth. Interstellar colonization is the establishment of settlements outside of the solar system.
The feasibility of interstellar colonization has substantial implications for the long-term future.
If feasible, this would raise the upper bound on the number of people who could eventually live by many orders of magnitude. On the other hand, given the Fermi paradox, its feasibility could be taken as evidence that humans are likely to go prematurely extinct.
Many difficulties would need to be surmounted before humans, or any other intelligent species, could begin to colonize other star systems. For instance, there would be huge energy requirements, the ability to manage extremely long (possibly intergenerational) flight lengths, and many distinct engineering challenges, such as safeguarding against high-velocity collisions with space dust.
Although there is not yet a substantial body of literature addressing the question, the few scientists who have examined interstellar colonization appear to be optimistic about its long-term feasibility.
Further reading
Beckstead, Nick (2014) Will we eventually be able to colonize other stars? Notes from a preliminary review, Global Priorities Project, June 22.
A summary of the small academic literature on interstellar colonization.
Kovic, Marko (2021) Risks of space colonization, Futures, vol. 126.
Mathieu, Edouard & Max Roser (2022) Space exploration and satellites, Our World in Data, June 14.
Shulman, Carl (2020) The High Frontier, space based solar power, and space manufacturing, Reflective disequilibrium, May 23.
Related entries
Fermi paradox | flourishing futures | Great Filter | long-term future | nonhumans and the long-term future | space governance | universe’s resources
Should this be merged with the Space tag?
Also, should this tag or that one have its scope expanded to include things like anti-satellite weapons and how they might affect international relations, existential risk (e.g., from nuclear war), etc.? Or maybe there should be a different tag for things like that, or they should just be part of Armed conflict?
Yes, this should be merged with space. I’ll ask JP how to proceed, because both tags have many articles already associated with them.
I think anti-satellite weapons should not be discussed here. Do you have concrete articles in mind? I’d say probably under armed conflict, though I’ll have to see an example to form a better sense of what the topic is.
I don’t actually know of a Forum post relevant to anti-satellite weapons. (Though I think it’d be good if there were some.)
I can see the case for excluding such posts from this tag. But here’s a case for including them: Issues like anti-satellite weapons or also near-term use of space for warfare may lead to or require governance efforts or norms that then also influence the course of higher stakes, further future governance and norms related to space. If so, it could be useful for people interested in the further future space stuff to also see content on the nearer term issues, and vice versa. This is analogous to how “near term”, lower stakes AI issues might still be relevant to AI existential risk and might be reasonably treated as part of the same broad topic (e.g. of AI safety or AI ethics).
I think I’ve seen this argument made for the space case, but I can’t remember where and it’s possible it’s just something I made up. I think the argument probably has merit, though I’m not certain how much.