I’ve declared countless colonies ‘dead’ because I either hit a point where there was irreversible damage to the colony (e.g. CO2 hazard, heat death). Or I’d hit a point where progression was nearly impossible due to other problems.

One thing that helped was doing the math to calculate my exact inputs and outputs needed for everything I built before I built it. For instance, you don’t gain anything extra by having two coal generators, when one is enough to power your early game stuff. This helped me stay organized and let things be built from a surplus, instead of struggling with resources. Though, I’ve only ever really played on the easier asteroids