Amazing how in the same article he manages to mix Europe and the final frontier.

Well, about the frontier of space and "liberty", I was wondering...

Is is it freedom to be spending his time inside a spacesuit or a space station or even a space colony? All those "places" are closed ecological systems.
Is it "freedom" to spend months in weighlessness and having to exercize 2 or 3 or 4 hours a day, just to fight against what would keep you from ever freely returning back to the home planet?
And about space colonies...How many humans need there to be to have a sustainable lasting space colony? 180 humans? All hard working scientists, engineers or soldiers? Or whole families with young and old people?
As soon as there are several people, there are rights and obligations for every one of them and here come redistribution and bureaucracy!
I'll admit having dreamt of being in a space station, in GEO, all alone, supervising hundreds of satellites, probes, across the solar system...or being alone in a base on Farside, with the universe for company...but the lighthouse keeper mentality doesn't really last very long.

Raoul