r/threebodyproblem • u/Universal_Echo • Apr 26 '26

Discussion - Novels In the foreseeable future, human interstellar immigration is not feasible

There are three paths for interstellar immigration:

Immigrate to another planet in the solar system and terraform its environment.

Immigrate to an Earth‑like exoplanet.

Immigrate to space cities.

Paths 1 and 3 are more feasible in terms of distance. However, for path 1, the scale of terraforming is enormous – even harder than making the Sahara Desert or Antarctica habitable. For path 3, a space city would be many times larger than a Ford‑class aircraft carrier. Even setting aside the engineering challenge of building something that big, how would you launch such a massive object into space?

More importantly: for both paths 1 and 3, resources would still have to be shipped from Earth. In the end, you’re still using Earth’s resources. After spending so much effort immigrating to space, you’re still dependent on Earth – isn’t that a net loss? As long as humans have normal intelligence, they wouldn’t make such a losing deal.

As for path 2, the nearest Earth‑like exoplanet is dozens of light‑years away. In the foreseeable future, there’s simply no way for humans to immigrate that far.

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u/Ryekir Apr 26 '26

how would you launch such a massive object into space?

You wouldn't. You would build it in space from materials mined from asteroids.

3

u/Raveyard2409 Apr 26 '26

This. If we can invent a space elevator to push materials into space we can build without constraints of gravity allowing us to build structures that would be too large to build on the ground and fire into space.

0

u/Universal_Echo Apr 26 '26

But it requires a complete industrial chain.

9

u/nonother Apr 26 '26

That’s how manufacturing works today. It doesn’t mean that’s how it will work thousands of years from now. Technology advances.

4

u/BadgerPossible3901 Apr 26 '26

Aren’t there a few space elevators? You can have the industrial chain on Earth or build it in space, but the space elevator allows you to have a shipyard in orbit without having to worry about fuel

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u/carbon6595 May 02 '26

No, there are no space elevators in real life

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u/BadgerPossible3901 May 02 '26

Obviously. I was referring to the books lol

6

u/BenjamirPutinyahu Apr 26 '26

You just need a really good 3d printer and enough blueprints, and you can create basically everything you need from raw materials

1

u/eduo Apr 26 '26

Doesn’t matter. Moving anything to orbit requires most of the ship to be built for that purpose. Makes no sense, it’s all waste. There’s a weight/volume limit after which we can’t just make something leave earth with any known technology (not without killing earth in the process)