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The problems of nation-building on Earth sound pretty similar to the challenges of settling space:

The authors are blind to the vision of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the prophet who started thinking seriously about space 150 years ago. Tsiolkovsky saw the future of space as a problem of biology rather than as a problem of engineering. He worked out the theory of rockets and saw that rockets would solve the problem of space travel, to get from here to there. Getting from here to there is the problem of engineering that Tsiolkovsky knew how to solve. That is the easy part. The hard part is knowing what to do when you have got there. That is the problem of biology, to find ways to survive and build communities in space, to adapt the structures of living creatures, human and nonhuman, so they can take root in strange environments wherever they happen to be. Tsiolkovsky knew nothing of biotechnology, but he understood the problems that biotechnology would enable us to solve.

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