As mentioned before, of course, all else is not equal at the moment.
Join my forum game!Part of the point of going into to space is to form colonies, though. Granted, we're way far away from technology making that viable, but there will be people that want to do it. Largely for the cool factor. And also for whatever opportunities will crop up once space travel is made easier.
My point is that there will be people that WANT to do all that stuff. A large part of our desire to do so isn't out of necessity, but because it sounds like a challenge we want to take on. Because we want to see if we can. What's the point of getting machines out into to space and us being unable to see all this stuff with our own eyes?
Also, ease of getting things into space has to do with things like weight and mass. Not really whether it's living or not. If you can reduce the number of people you need to send somewhere, chances are good you're going to replace that weight with something else that's useful.
Shipping food to and from earth would not be particularly easier with it being dead (however, the lack of freshness might be an issue with purchasers). The may or may not hold together, plants and crap are fibrous, not homogenous.
However, machines are a lot easier to fire off into space since they can be engineered for durability.
Fight smart, not fair.The problem is, if a space project is successful, the initiator gets a lot of credit for it. That can compare unfavorably with what the current administration (whoever it consists of at any given time), which is seen as a political problem, especially if the initiator belonged to the other party. Thus, each new administration shuts down the existing projects before they can succeed, in order to prevent there being successes not attributable to that administration.
Join my forum game!I still support removing the elected officials ability to control projects instead of just write checks, but hey, that's just me.
Fight smart, not fair.Sadly, there's been nary a realistic estimate in the space industry for decades. Everyone just gives huge underestimates in order to secure contracts.
Join my forum game!Actually, there's evidence that suggests that Republicans like science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why this is the case. To summarize, its because science makes technology, and technology sells, and Republicans don't want to die poor. Or something.
edited 22nd Jan '13 10:49:17 AM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.NASA is a government agency and not out to make a profit in that manner. Their profit is in what they can learn about space and technology. They're not a private company and do not have the money making goals of one at all. What you're suggesting runs counter to what NASA desires to do.
http://ace-of-blue-spades.tumblr.com/post/37003587027/jumpingjacktrash-rockpapertheodore
Some of the stuff they've contributed to.

It's not about "having" to live in space. It's about the fact that there are going to be people who will want to do that, and will be willing to undergo whatever training is necessary to do it. Also I don't know why we'd grow crops in space when it's a lot less arduous to just grow it here; less fuel cost for one, more ability to respond should a crop go bad for whatever reason. Our food problem is one that requires different solutions than this. That could be a whole thread by itself.
Plus, regardless of how automated anything is you're going to have to have someone up there who can respond to machines breaking down and such. So there's going to be someone out there making sure the gas goes the right way and the machines keep running smoothly.