Boys and Girls in Space

>people keep discussing the number of children being force. i
>personally see it being more of a lottery. many ppl will not want to
>have a certain numbers, some less, some more. in order for the system
>to work there will have to be a certain number per year.

But folks, don't you think that a colony facing crowding due to population
growth would just build their way out of it? With plentiful materials from
asteroids, NEAs, the moon, etc., and energy practically free, it seems like
building new Islands nearby would be the obvious answer to overpopulation.
Draconian solutions might be necessary in the short run, but with human
birth-to-reproduction times at 20 years per generation give or take, the
colony could start a leisurely building program and NEVER run out of space.
That is until mankind fills up ALL the cis-solar space. Even if it does
turn out to be not quite as cheap and easy as I suspect it would, I can
imagine the colony gladly voting the tax funds, increasing productivity or
pushing for other ways of making money so as to afford new construction,
rather than put up with lotteries, sterilization, exile, etc. I just have
to believe that within a two generations of the advent of orbital habitats,
construction of new habitats will have become so cheap that the only limit
on human population growth would be those imposed by couples' choices, or in
some habs, by the sterilizing effects of all the drugs and porn they're
doing.

BradW