Yes. The reasons why long tours of duty would be preferable to short tours of duty, and permanent settlement preferable to either, for a space colony boil down to passenger transport costs and time. And, of course, any factor dropping these costs would tend to make it easier to colonize for non-economic motives.
We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out.
Which is one of the reasons why we'll see extensive Lunar and Martian colonization before we see much settlement of the surface of Venus or the deeper atmospheres of the gas giants.
Incidentally, while advanced automation makes colonization a lot easier, it does not negate the need for and utility of humans on-site. Speed-of-light is a hard physical limitation, and signal lag means that it is impractical to run a colony by remote control from Earth.
no subject
We'll have sea-bed colonies after space colonies. Simply put, it's easier to keep a modest pressure in then to keep a massive pressure out.
Which is one of the reasons why we'll see extensive Lunar and Martian colonization before we see much settlement of the surface of Venus or the deeper atmospheres of the gas giants.
Incidentally, while advanced automation makes colonization a lot easier, it does not negate the need for and utility of humans on-site. Speed-of-light is a hard physical limitation, and signal lag means that it is impractical to run a colony by remote control from Earth.