The government should create a new agency and begin a Manhattan style project to create an American space colony. The new agency will support the current colony as well as work towards creating additional colonies to advance our space presence. The new colony will provide insurances for human survival as well as advances in technology and American influence.
NASA has done a large amount of research towards supporting life in space and showed a space colony is feasible. However, NASA is dedicated towards space exploration and cannot effectively perform both missions. Today there is an increasing number of threats facing the human population such as global warming, war, and over population it has become vital that we work towards populating space to ensure human survival and growth.