By Samson Williams
The last time every human lived on the planet was November 2, 2000. Since that date there has been at least 1 human living on the International Space Station (ISS). So to say Humanity will never live in Space, would be a misnomer. Becuase while we will never live in Space...we will continue to visit from time to time.
I'll say that the build up to having permanent human settlement on the Moon and other Satellites will be slow. No, we won't go to Mars. Yes, we'll spend $3T-$12T f'n around trying to get there...only to realize that everything we ever needed is already on Spaceship Earth.
However, the trillions of dollars wasted on Mars isn't a waste. Because the dream of Mars, saves Earth. Where else will we get the $Ts of dollars needed to research terra forming from, if not the dream that is Mars? And here is the beautiful thing about wasting money trying to turn Mars into Earth. It first requires that we understand how to turn Earth back into Earth.
Because if we spend $Ts to develop the tech to terraform Mars...Earth gets its own make over. In the form of carbon capture plants like Orca in Iceland. https://climeworks.com/roadmap/orca and so many other yet to be discovered break throughs that not only enable Humans to take to the stars like our ancestors did the seas but also enable us to save ourselves... from us.