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

[TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

Lee,

You pictured the following:

>A "sponsor" could be a government, a multi-national corporation or
>consortium, or it could be a company formed by the colonists, specifically
>for the purpose of equiping and sending a colony to another system.
>Something like "The Tau Ceti Development Corporation", or the "Chartered
>Procyon Expedition". Such groups would most likely be composed of people
>with common idealogies, interests or backgrounds. After all, what else
>were the Puritans who sailed to Plymouth if not a private company
>chartered for the express purpose of establishing a new colony.

>It is only a matter of scale...

So is the difference between family hierarchy (parents-children) and state
hierarchy (government-citizens).
I know the comparison is really bad, but I think that "a matter of scale" is
just not the right idea.

Only if trip time is about a year and the costs are less than $10,000,000
per person (more likely even less than $1,000,000), then one gets closer to
your scenario of the Puritains.

To find a group with common idealogies and a common salery with more that 7
figures is not very likely to be big.


Timothy

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"Why go to the stars?" part II
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Lee,

>You are assuming that the masses are interested enough to mutiny.

Am I? I just wondered what the concequences are.

>The meek truly shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will have left...
>isn't that the nature of frontiers?

Well, the "wild" will go where they can satisfy their needs best. If you are
a multimillionaire, I'm not so sure if your needs can be satisfied best near
TC or near Sun.
The wild will also stay near Earth. Having a nice holiday home on Mars or
owning a space station (1 km diameter with your own laws) seems pretty wild too.

And as usual, the meek will follow the wild after a while.

Timothy