Brainstorming Twelve Colonies of Kobol: The Early Years

This setting is based on this map
https://io9.gizmodo.com/detailed-map...lonies-5742034
These are the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, we'll make it a D20 Future setting, starting out at a time before the show Caprica. Technology is about at the same level as Earth today. There are no Cylons yet, there is no FTL drive, no artificial gravity. We set the scene on Caprica, Gemenon hangs in the sky, since the early days of wireless, contact has been made with the other planets in the system. Television signals have been sent back and forth. Very expensively a crew of three lifted off on a launch pad and journeyed to Gemenon, the capsule seperated from the vehicle and entered the atmosphere of Gemenon with its ablative heat shield. Parachutes deployed and the capsule splashed down in the Gemenese ocean to be picked up by an aircraft carrier, the astronauts were airlifted onboard and took part in a big parade on Gemenon, the first steps for man on another planet after traveling through the void of space. The trip cost billions of cubits and it cost billions more to send the astronauts back to Caprica, but history was made. Technology at the time was vintage 1960s, the transistor was a new thing, computers were the size of refrigerators, and the idea of building a robot was a far off fantasy.

I think the science of rocketry advances a bit faster than in our timeline. Giant wireless telescopes point to various worlds in the system and contact is made with those systems that are wireless capable, technology is transmitted across space so return trips could be made. For the next few decades space travel is sponsored by the various colonial governments, with billions of cubits spend on expendible staged chemical rockets to get astronauts from one planet to the next. The astronauts are basically ambassadors and scientists, setting up embassies, while other ships land on more primitive colonies, return trips from those planets are not yet possible because of the deep gravity wells and they fact that the receiving colony cannot build rockets to send the astronauts back to their homes.

Someone gets the idea of building a space shuttle, but that turns out to be just as expensive as building a big expendible multistaged rocket, and the shuttle can only reach low orbit, a huge external tank is sacrificed with every launch, and the solid rockets on the sides are even worth reusing. Soon it becomes possible to make a telephone call from Caprica to Gemenon, but it takes 3 seconds to get a response, so a two way conversation is very stilted with 3 second pauses between words spoken. It becomes a popular activity to send interplanetary e-mail, videos get downloaded across space once a format is agreed to. Some new colonies that just invented wireless sets now start to make contact, and technology transfers are sent across space, and as more worlds become communicative, the advancement of technology accelerates.

An enterprising billionaire starts developing resuable rocket stages, technology is now advanced enough that they can land automatically on landing pads with the help of GPS systems, this allows rockets to be launched, stages to be landed and then loaded up with fuel for delivery to orbit for refueling operations, with this development it now becomes possible for private citizens although wealthy ones, to make interplanetary trips without government sponsorship. As more and more people make the trip across space, ships get larger and the price of a ticket goes down.

How do you think it would develop from here?