RE: starship-design: The Case for Space

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

Zenon,

> Still that longing for impossible "equality",
> whose only effect is stifling all development,
> and leading only to equality in misery.
> As the say in Poland - "Shit, but equally distributed..."
> [in Polish it is shorter, and with a rhyme].
> Strange the "equalists" here are still wildly popular...

Count me not among the number of those who insist upon an equal share,
instead, grant me only an equal chance to do with as I will. 'Twill be my
own hand upon my bootstraps, not someone else's however well intentioned
they may be, that way lies only ruin...

>
> It seems to me that you all think in this thread only in terms of
> "what profit space operations can bring to people living on Earth".
> Generally I must say it is a wrong perspective - space operations
> will be mostly directed at, and bring profits (and sustenance)
> to people living OFF EARTH. Because the real rationale for
> going massively into space is to install a self-sustaining
> populations of people living out of Earth. And it is not
> the matter of profit or building a comfortable paradise
> for growing amounts of people on Earth, but the matter of survival.
> Because, as I wrote recently in a discussion with one
> environmentalist
> (specifically, a leader of an anti-cassini group):
>

Ahh, but that was the point of the thread, what good might space do for the
planet, not what good it might do for space. I do not deny that it will do
as much or more for the 3 billion humans I expect will be living off planet
in the next fifty years or so. In fact, I personally would prefer to look at
in those terms. However, the case must be made for the benefit of the meek,
who shall remain behind...

> > The Earth's biosphere was very lucky to survive several
> > such near-extinctions in the past - the best investigated of them
> > occuring some 65 millions year ago, when, together with dinozaurs,
> > above 70% of all plant and animal species utterly perished.

I do not call this "surviving an extinction" when all higher life forms
perish and naught remains but insects and rodents, I think it a fair call
that all that was significant perished.

> > The only chance to prevent an ultimate disaster of this kind
> > is to spread humankind, and the earthly life as a whole,
> > to other places except Earth - that is, to other planets,
> > and colonies in space. This is indeed a very difficult,
> > and a very risky business - lots of people will perish in
> the course
> > of conquering space, but the mankind, and the rest of earthly life,
> > will get a chance to survive thanks to their noble sacrifice.
> > It is our obligation, as the most conscious and able
> species of life
> > on Earth, to spread life elsewhere in the universe and in this way
> > to prevent its extinction in some catastrophic accident that may
> > happen to Earth.

Ignoring the incredible hubris, I agree. There is of course an ethical
question here of whether we have the right to spread (read infest) the rest
of space with our particular form of life, but based on current evidence, we
may be the ONLY life...

>
> Sadly, as it was otherwise easy to predict,
> it did not change his views.

What did I miss? Whose views? I seem to be missing a post here!

>
> Of course, the way to the really spacefaring civilization
> most probably will lead through an earth-bound civilization
> profiting from space exploration, but it will be a comparatively
> short, transitory phase only.

Of course you are correct, the near term will look much like it does now,
but I think it will be more a matter of the corporate paradigm will evolve
to encompass first off-earth and then extra-solar activities. Much beyond
fifty years is hard to see. Just look at the changes the last fifty have
wrought.

Lee

"History teaches us that it is not the rebels or the dissidents who endanger
society but rather the unthinking, the unquestioning, the obedient, the
silent and the indifferent."