Elon Musk is planning to build a city of one million humans on Mars over the next few decades. Jeff Bezos wants to put between one million and one trillion humans into space to live and work. Robert Zubrin has plans to build a permanent manned moon base within four years from now.
Brian Wang’s Nextbigfuture website is one of the main internet boosters for futuristic science and technology — and has produced a video describing how humans of the free world might proceed to build a human future in space:
More on the Dawn of a True Space Age
More from Next Big Future on Jeff Bezos’ space dreams, and the near term moon base plans of Robert Zubrin.
How to Pay for All of This
Cislunar Econosphere of Ken Murphy
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2027/1
The only way to sustain a long-term human migration off-planet is to make sure the effort pays for itself. SpaceX is putting a fleet of thousands of communications satellites into low earth orbit (LEO) which when complete should earn its backers over $1 trillion per year, every year. Zubrin’s project to build a moon colony to turn lunar water resources into commercial rocket fuel could likewise turn into a highly profitable venture. The mining of near Earth asteroids for fuel and materials is another space enterprise sector which could turn into a $trillion per year business. Elon Musk may be dreaming of Mars, but his SpaceX rocket fleets will be instrumental in building the “cis-lunar economy” which will help to pay for the fledging of the human race from its Earth nest.
On one level, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Robert Zubrin, and other space visionaries might be considered “kooks” for aiming so high. But how else can a race of barely evolved monkeys begin to move some of its eggs out of the Earth basket — a basket that has been overturned by massive disasters from space and on Earth multiple times in past history?
Trying to make humans into space colonists and interplanetary/interstellar travelers, is not an easy goal — and if left to governments would probably never get done in a million years. But if left to profit-seeking capitalists who also happen to be possessed by a visionary bent, it just might happen.
Thanks to Brian Wang of Nextbigfuture.com for helping to keep the spark alive on this and many other fronts.
More:
Clearing bureaucratic hurdles to space
Update: ArsTechnica report on contemporary commercial rockets
al fin next level 
Living in space means needing a pressure suit. You’d need a pressure suit to live inside your 400 degree oven as well. The thought of living inside a 400 degree oven should illustrate how ridiculous the idea of anything more than a symbolic brace of men living in space, an environment so harsh that it makes Antarctica look like Disneyland.
That is HIGHLY speculative, to say the least. Let’s wait 5 or 10 years before talking about a new space age.
“I would prefer not to” wait 5 or 10 years before talking about a new space age. Is it now illegal in France to engage in highly speculative thinking? In the UK, perhaps, but in France? That would be regrettable.
You comment @ La lime. Are you on Twitter ?