 That is graphically expressed in the chilling short story "Welcome".In it, humanity has abandoned space and is left with an overcrowded Earth where a small elite not only treats all the rest as chattel slaves, but also regularly practices cannibalism, their chefs preparing "roast suckling coolie" for their banquets.Conversely, in the bleak Orwellian world of "The High Ones" where the Soviets have won the Third World War and gained control of the whole of Earth, the dissidents still have some hope, precisely because space flight has not been abandoned.