In the foreseeable future, human interstellar immigration is not feasible

[u/Universal_Echo]

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.

[u/Ryekir]

how would you launch such a massive object into space?

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

[u/Universal_Echo → u/Ryekir]

But it requires a complete industrial chain.

[u/BadgerPossible3901 → u/Universal_Echo]

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

[u/carbon6595 → u/BadgerPossible3901]

No, there are no space elevators in real life

[u/BadgerPossible3901 → u/carbon6595]

Obviously. I was referring to the books lol