How about Heinlein's take? It starts out as a godforsaken penal colony, but then turns into a libertarian paradise for the self reliant. Here's the most compel

How about Heinlein's take? It starts out as a godforsaken penal colony, but then turns into a libertarian paradise for the self reliant. Here's the most compelling reason for starting settlement off planet: Polities that exist in a larger context will come to dominate human culture. A solar system wide culture based on relatively primitive, inefficient O'Neill colony habitats could still support a human population in the trillions with only known resources, solar power, and only small extrapolations from current technology.