Re: starship-design: Why go to the stars?

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: Antonio C T Rocha <arocha@bsb.nutecnet.com.br>
> 
> kyle wrote:
> 
> > Greetings all:
> >
> > I think I should point out some reasons for why we should go to the
> > stars:
> >
> > 1) Self Preservation
> > 2) To honor the great explorers of the past
> > 3) Its our nature to explore
> > 4) To boldly go where no man has gone before... (Gene Roddenberry was
> > right about that)
> >
> > And most of all:
> > 5) To learn all that is learnable.
> >
> > Does anyone need better reasons? If so, I have none.
> >
> > Kyle Mcallister
> 
>   For the same reasons medieval Russian peasants fled to the woods?
>   (Maybe this falls under .1.)
>        -  To get as far away as possible form: the Boyars orders,
> foremen and henchmen; from the Csars Tax Collectors and press gangs, and
> from the Zealots bonfires.... (and keep whatever honey I find, whatever
> furs I trap, enjoy whatever I build, feed on whatever I hunt or raise
> and sing whatever I feel like, when I feel like it).
>   Sure its optimistic, but its a reason too.
>   In other words: to open up frontiers.
>                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's the best, I think! 
Sums up nicely all the particular reasons
like that listed by Kyle and others.
Though it is useful to elaborate the special cases too,
just to explain what this opening of frontiers actually
and practically means.

-- Zenon