How could month-long travel times be compatible with a settled Solar System?

In a universe with no faster-than-light travel, the Solar System has largely been settled, and has been for at least 200 years.

I envision populations to look something like this:

Earth: 8 billion;
Moon and Earth orbit: 2 billion;
Mars: 2 billion;
Asteroid belt: A couple million, mostly blue collar workers.;
Jovian moons: 2 billion, mostly spread over the Galilean moons;
Saturnian moons: 2 billion;
Outer planets: A half billion, mostly weirdos.

I'm willing to hand-wave gravity differences (I'm not super interested in spinning spaceships, so artificial gravity) and terraforming processes. For the larger moons, we develop an easy process for refining oxygen from the gas giants and the residents out there have implants, etc. to allow them to breathe.

Basically, Earthmen, Mooners, Martians and Gassers can easily live on each other's celestial bodies.

However, I want a journey to Titan to take around 9 months. How can such a long travel time be compatible with settlement and movement on the scale of billions?

posted about 9 years ago

Azor Ahai‭

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