Re: Re: starship-design: scoops and sails and something to push against.

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

KellySt@aol.com writes:
 > This runs into the two big questions:
 >  - Who'ld pay for all this?
 >  - Why?
 > 
 > We could never figure out why anyone would fund a exploration leval missino.
 > a migratino through the galaxy mission is really over the top.

With our current level of technology and planet-bound economy, I
can see how it would be hard to imagine how to fund interstellar
exploration.

When we have an interplanetary economy, with the level of
technology and access to resources that implies, answering the
question "Why should we go to the stars?" with "because we can"
will make a lot more sense.  If we have self-sustaining orbital
colonies, then the expertise and infrastructure needed to build
interstellar spacecraft is far more likely to be there, and the
expense of obtaining the materials and construction labor will be
far less.

In other words, the culture that goes to the stars will be a far
different culture than we have now, particularly in the economic
sense.  This isn't the first time I've had to remind Kelly of
that.