Rich people used to pay the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars to ride short distances on triplanes just so they could see the ground from above. That’s what this is. Soon, rich people will be going on trips to the Moon, and then middle class people will be able to afford it later. New technologies are always expensive at first but then get cheaper, case in point, the computer you’re using right now.

Also, I doubt a corporate settlement is gonna be any worse than any other settlement considering almost everything the colony actually needs will be produced in the colony itself after the first few years and the corporation can’t do much from all the way over on Earth if the colony decides to do something they don’t like. Colonization schemes have usually been private endeavors that get subsumed by the state anyway, been like that since the Americas. I support anyone who brings us to the stars, including rich people.