Re: Final destinations in space

Jim McCauley (jematfriidotnet) wrote:
: I just finished Robert Sawyer's _Mindscan_: cool book, which reinforces my
: notions about uploaded humans as the most logical interstellar explorers.
: But another feature of the book is a very upscale lunar colony for the
: mortal husks that the uploaded copies leave behind. Interesting, and creepy
: too.

: Which occasioned me to think again: For all the back&forth about manned
: exploration, I'm not hearing much (here or anywhere else) about permanent
: human habitation off this planet. That is to say, you leave the earth, and
: you don't come back, ever. Hopefully, you live for a while in space before
: you qualify as recyclable organic material.

Battlestar Galactica.

: The key, I suppose, is the linkage between motivation and finance. There
: was a gap of more than seventy years between the European discovery of the
: New World and the first permanent Settlement on the North American continent
: proper. Greed and religion featured prominently in future developments.

Water and food were here, and oil is everywhere, well, dispersed across
the planet anyway.

: Is any such motivation in sight for off-world habitation by humans and other
: species? We've burned up nearly four decades since Apollo 11, and still
: there is no St. Augustine or Massachusetts Bay Colony anywhere off-planet.

And there won't be unless we can find natural resources like water on the
moon, for example.

: Granted, it costs a bundle to reach escape velocity by whatever means you
: choose, and destination development is a long way from cheap. What sort of
: motivation is finally going to make the capital start to flow?

Serious degradation of the earth like on Battlestar Galactica.

: I'll say this, and you can take it as gospel: If someone had offered me,
: when I was a single man in my twenties or thirties, a chance to be on a team
: that settled the moon or an asteroid, I would have signed on immediately.

Yes, we get folks to go to war, too.

: Even now, as I stand between retirement and dotage, if I had a shot at
: talking my wife into settling permanently on the moon, I'd make every
: persuasive argument possible. Eventually 1/6th gee would be a blessing to
: our aging bones -- but I don't have tens of millions of dollars lying about
: to pay our one-way fare.

I think you were born 100 years too early. Just my guess...

You make me want to add to the old saying, "bloom where you are planted".
Bloom when and where you are planted.

Eric

: Jim McCauley


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