I’m looking to get inspiration for my own writing. I need a hard sci fi series where earth (and earthlike worlds) are too rare, inaccessible, and/or previously spoiled beyond ability to sustain life. Bonus points if it is set on a multi-generational space station or starship without any other options and goes into detail about life support, living space, mineral mining and expansion of the station to accomodate a growing population, and daily life of it’s residents.
If anyone remembers Drifter Colonies from Titan A.E., that’s what’s in my head.
I’m looking for The Martian levels of realism, and I’m fine with a bit of “Unobtanium” clichés if they’re not core to the story.
To be fair, and no spoilers, but I’m not sure The Expanse qualifies for this request, technically. (As a huge fan of the books and series both)
Corey goes into pretty good detail about how they made Eros, Ganymede, and the generation ship livable. Seems like they qualified.
Clearly, that’s not the aspect I was hinting at. >!The first part of the request is the relevant section, not the “bonus points”, all due respect: “earth (and earthlike[sic] worlds) are too rare, inaccessible, and/or previously spoiled beyond ability to sustain life.”!<
The belters make a pretty solid example of what it sounds like OP is looking for. The entire setting doesn’t match to a T but there’s enough interaction with inhospitable environments to be worth looking into, I think.