Setting Jam: Hyperbolic Trajectory

[ericthered]

Why can't people own land anymore? Is it being concentrated in the hands of few? If so, why aren't they selling? Have governments changed how they feel about freehold title? If so, what caused them to move towards leaseholds? Or is it something else?

On earth, there are a bunch of factors behind this, but for space stations its a matter of there not being any land. The owners of space stations retain enormous rights over their structures, and they see no need to give up more legally than they have to. A space in a station was always more like a condo than a plot of land. And because of the required negotiations in claiming orbital paths, space stations aren't practical for anyone who can't build one with a thousand inhabitants or more.

On earth (and other celestial bodies), Governments and Giant Corporations have locked up most of the land and hold onto it jealously. Population growth, ecological efforts, and extreme urbanization has pushed people more and more into multi-unit housing. As the gap in power between the rich and poor grows, the land reform laws of the 18th -20th centuries are undone, letting a very few control all the land.


Question: How common is human genetic engineering?

Originally Posted by PTTG

Which is also why there's relatively little exploration and settlement beyond the earth-moon system; travel time gets unmanageable fast with common station-hoppers.

I did say earth "Orbit", including the Lagrange points between it and the sun... but those places probably are mostly drawing building material from the earth and moon.