If the planet isn't poisoned more and if workers (and the public in general) aren't killed for arbitrary reasons on a whim, ascension is canceled. 
If the planet isn't poisoned more and if workers (and the public in general) aren't killed for arbitrary reasons on a whim, ascension is canceled.
They already try Galt's Gulches, over and over again in basically lawless parts of the Earth, and they fail pretty fucking fast over and over again, often from internal backstabbing and fraud.
Okay but hear me out, what if we tried it again, but this time in S P A C E??
Literal vampire Th!el admitted seasteading was a failure, and then in the same speech said that's why spacesteading is next.
Sure it fails when there's free breathable air, a comfortable temperature, many ways to simply leave, and it's easy and cheap to ship supplies, but what if none of those things were true, and also any equipment malfunction wasn't merely inconvenient but actively life-threatening?