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

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Kelly,
>
> I was with you Lee until the last paragraph.  Why would we start
> by launching
> fleets of hundreds of ships?  We can't even figure out a
> compeling reason to
> launch one.  Certainly "a new chance on a new world" seems off.
> The one place
> we couldn't settle would be the planets, and if were staying in space
> platforms ther is no reason to leave this star system.
>
> What angle are you figuring on here?
>

At some point in time, whether it is fifty years from now or a hundred and
fifty, crossing the gulf between the stars will have become simple. I am not
making any predictions as to how, just that it will. At that point in time a
whole new set of driving factors comes in to play, factors that don't even
exist right now in some cases. When a slightly modified freighter or mining
ship can make the crossing, everybody and their brother WILL be going. I did
not mean it so much as a single agency or organization would be launching
fleets of ships, just that "fleets" of ships would be leaving.

Lee