> the pathway of getting humans to be a multiplanetary species
I am afraid that you're suffering from Flavor-Aid poisoning here. We need a reality check about "multiplanetary colonization".
I've been following human spaceflight since I was born. I've actually participated in robotic spaceflight. And I'm here to say that it is robots who are destined to be a multiplanetary species. The robots have already successfully escaped our solar system and extensively explored the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
Many unscientific people believe that it's harder to colonize the Moon or Mars because they are farther than Africa or Rio de Janeiro is from Rome. But mere distance is not really your biggest obstacle.
I've also been following the ISS since its inception, and they have empirically disproven the feasibility of colonizing planets. If we succeed in establishing a crewed Moon base, it will be an ultra-Herculean effort, and it's on the edge of feasibility.
But Mars? Venus? Asteroids? Europa? You really think humans are going to live there?
The reasons that ISS has disproven this are manifold, but I'll point out two key points:
Their supply-chain is only about 8-48 hours, and they can stash large amounts of provisions up there. Their escape route is also only 8 hours and they're back on Earth in a jiffy. None of this is true for any body outside of Earth orbit. The Apollo missions arrived on the Moon and returned safely, by burning, jettisoning, consuming, and abandoning nearly everything they started with!!
A 15th-century expedition to Africa or Brazil means that you can fish in the ocean, breathe the air, drink rainwater along the way. An expedition to the Moon puts you in an airtight bubble with no stops, no rescue, no resupply, and most importantly, no breathing on the way, nor once you get there.
The ISS has also demonstrated the severe toll on the human physique in microgravity conditions. Watch astronauts who land or splash down. They are carted off in gurneys. They are literally unable to walk unassisted. NASA restricts returnees from driving or even jogging. The astronauts describe having to "relearn gravity" activities like brushing your teeth and showering. Any astronaut arriving on Mars would be as helpless as a toddler! Do you want to colonize Mars with toddlers? Because all the treadmills and workouts along the way won't make them fit for purpose on arrival.
So between here and Mars it's minimum six months, no escape, no rescues, no takey-backsies. We could send humans to Mars if we didn't want them to survive or return. I mean, no problem. There's no air to breathe on Mars; no water to drink; no fuel to burn; no fish to fish nor deer to hunt; no steel to build a shelter. You pack it all into the spacecraft, newbie?
But NASA and the rest of the world has amply demonstrated just how capable robots are where humans fail. Robots are going to inherit the solar system. Robots are in 2026, the de facto interplanetary species, sine qua non. My heart is warmed by these human achievements. I, for one, am happy to live and die on Earth. I think that every American should be grateful for Earth, and not permit our oligarchs to cheat and lie to us with fairytales of escaping our Earth.
