Spacefaring or the Victorian era

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Let's say that there is going to be a point at which the cost of petroleum will be too high to allow for any economy based off of vehicles using petroleum to continue using it. After that, there may be short range electric vehicles or whatever, but primarily I think that most things may go back to railroads and horses and sailing ships. Before that point is reached though, there is still more of a possibility of starting a space-faring civilization which may be able to sustain itself after sufficient infrastructure is present. Precisely now, during an economic recession, would probably not be the best time, however once that recession is cleared it would be, in my opinion, imperative to begin the construction of the orbital infrastructure to allow the space industry to not be dependent upon supplies from Earth. If we don't get that done sooner rather than later, I believe that it never will be done. I rather we go to space while we can though rather than procrastinate while our one opportunity passes by to enter into space as a civilization rather than as a bunch of campers.

Capital investment in orbital infrastructure is, not to put too fine a point on it, asinine.

There are a very limited number of circumstances under which a return on investment can be realized. Telecommunications certainly is one of them. Perhaps there may be others, but until you can demonstrate a cost model that is going to have consumers on the planet buying products and services that will finance the capital outlay to build the infrastructure, there is nothing to build.

The funamental analytical tool for any business investment is the "Net Present Value" of a projected revenue stream. If the NPV exceeds the investment cost, the investment is a good one and should be undertaken. If it is less, it should not. But without a a revenue stream, the NPV of the investment is less than zero (because NPV is measured against the return from a risk free investment).

So we would first have to find something in space that's worth spending billions of dollars to establish "colonies"? (or whatever you want to call them)

I think the main resources in space that we will go for in the future are:

-Energy from the sun: Maybe find a way to harvest energy directly from the sun and "beam" it back. Then all of those environmentalists with solar panels will look like hippies. :P

-Materials that are rare and nonexistent on Earth: Probably not going to happen soon since we could probably find ways to synthesize these if we really need to.

-Tourism: Get all of the rich people in the world to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few minutes in space. Once space tourism is more feasible, we can maybe establish a moon-hotel. Then go for Mars. :D

-Storage Space: And lots of it. But space probably won't be used for storage for a long time, except maybe for radioactive or biohazardous materials.

-Testing weapons of mass destruction in space: Although I believe there's a law against it, it's better than testing them on Earth. Especially if someone actually invents the Little Doctor.

So, make sure that any project done has returns in the short term while prudentially building for the long term. That will have to be how things are done because of how impatient everyone is nowadays that they can't even wait 3 minutes for their deep fried fries to be cooked.

THe only commercial markets in space are satellites and any commercial support that government space travel might require. The only way to expand that near term is to create more research destinations for corporations and nations. The only ones who can afford the ticket prices.

The only game changer beyond that would be mass tourism, which is not close at even Space X prices. A small flight rate of wealthy tourists is helpful but not a game changer.

SSP is controversial and no serious efforts are underway. And lunar resources have value only when NASA or space tourism needs them on a certain scale. For now it's cheaper to ship fuel from Earth. Eventually it will make sense but that will probably require a permanent lunar presence and a new generation of refuel-able earth satellites. Then you've got a real market for cheap space fuel.

^Too expensive. Easier to get/make them on Earth. (edit: I meant two posts above)

But Earth has to run out sometime... Even if we mine the core for Iron and Nickel.