I think there’s a ton of overlap in the problems faced for colonizing anywhere off-planet. So I strongly expect that colonizing either implies colonizing the pretty quickly (half a century or less).
IMO, for pre-colony habitation (not self-sufficient, not going for exponential growth) the Moon is so much closer that it’s almost guaranteed to be the starter and test location, with Mars and then maybe Jovian moons trailing by a few dozen years.
At that point, it may turn out that one of the other places has enough more starter atmosphere and ready raw materials than the moon, and it’s better to transition base->colony somewhere other than Earth’s moon.
Or maybe we’ll collapse under the singularity or decide to fill the oceans with people before we deal with space.
I think there’s a ton of overlap in the problems faced for colonizing anywhere off-planet. So I strongly expect that colonizing either implies colonizing the pretty quickly (half a century or less).
IMO, for pre-colony habitation (not self-sufficient, not going for exponential growth) the Moon is so much closer that it’s almost guaranteed to be the starter and test location, with Mars and then maybe Jovian moons trailing by a few dozen years. At that point, it may turn out that one of the other places has enough more starter atmosphere and ready raw materials than the moon, and it’s better to transition base->colony somewhere other than Earth’s moon.
Or maybe we’ll collapse under the singularity or decide to fill the oceans with people before we deal with space.