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Last Exit: Space is a new documentary on Discovery+ that explores the possibility of humans colonizing planets beyond Earth. Since it is produced and narrated by Werner Herzog (director of Grizzly Man, guest star on The Mandalorian) and written and directed by his son Rudolph, however, it goes in a different direction than your average space documentary. It's weird, beautiful, skeptical, and even a bit funny.
In light of the film's recent streaming launch, father and son Herzog spoke with Ars Technica from their respective homes about the film's otherworldly hopes, pessimistic conclusions, and that one part about space colonists having to drink their own urine.
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Why Werner Herzog Thinks Human Space Colonization “Will Inevitably Fail”
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @07:23PM
There's roughly zero incentive to go to space to deliver information services to Earth - far cheaper to just hire people on Earth. The obvious exception being space research, but unless we discover life or something else that can potentially pay huge dividends there's not going to be a whole lot of money flowing into research conducted beyond Earth orbit. Microgravity is the same everywhere.
And it doesn't matter how badly in hock your space colonists are - that's of zero value to their creditors on Earth unless you can service your debt using Earth money. Which means you need to be selling something to Earth to make the money to pay your creditors. Company scrip is only good for ripping off your employees, for the boss to make money (and to import necessary goods from Earth) they need to be selling something to people paying with Earth money.
Now I suppose you could have some tycoon(s) personally bankrolling the whole thing to set themselves up their own little space-kingdom to live in... but a space kingdom is likely to be severely lacking in the luxuries billionaires are accustomed to. Not to mention buying an island on Earth to do the same thing is liable to be a lot cheaper, safer, more luxurious, and offers convenient access to all the cultural hot spots the planet has to offer.