The great dike that created the fresh water Zuider Zee from the once saline Isselmer, a bay of the North Sea, is like a giant sun-shading ramada, in that it creates lee space within whose shelter, reclamation can proceed at an even faster pace. The peat mined from the freshly reclaimed sea bottom lands prefigures the solar wind gases to be scavenged from the lunar regolith during site preparation, building materials processing and construction. Nor do the Dutch toil just to increase their annexed farmlands, they toil to maintain them, even as space pioneers will have to do. Maintenance and growth have to proceed hand in hand. Eco-niche lands won from the sea bottoms, whether of oceans or of space, must be defended ever after.
Life always strives against entropy.
Rest is fatal. There is precedent. We have spiritual ancestors. Their success gives us models to follow. We are not alone.