Re: starship-design: Hi, from a newbie

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/15/02 10:56:25 PM, toxicroach@swbell.net writes:

>
>
>About colonization--- here's the problem---  what's the point of having
>a
>
>space  station over an uninhabited planet?  Much
>
>less a manned one?  There isn't really, not that is going to free up the
>
>billions of dollars necessary to put one up over Mars
>
>(which will be our first conquest---

True.  Without a practical reason, we won't bother.




> you guys seem to be supposing that
>
>we'll  be visiting other solar systems anytime soon---
>
>fraid not.)   from any government.  The biggest reason we went to the moon
>
>was  to show up the Soviets for Sputnik.
>
>Without some government rivalry of some kind, the space program has gone
>
>quietly downhill. 

VERY true!



>
>before private enterprise is going to be able to come up with the capital
>to take such a risky (and to many peoples mind,
>
>(useless) proposition.  

Captal isn't the issue.  Investment potential is.  We could find the money, 
if it could pay back.



>  the colonization of the Americas was not done by the
>
>aristocrats and well to do--- it was done by the
>
>ambitious poor, who took the risk of going somewhere strange and very
>
>dangerous  for the chance to make something of
>
>themselves and live free.  I believe this will be the driving motive behind
>
>any  interplanetary colonization--- the desire to
>
>escape the tyranny and bullshit of the old earth.  

Problem is, you don't need to go very far on earth to do that, and moving to 
the boonies here - even Alaska - is far easier to do.  ;)




The great mass of people
>
>who  will be willing to uproot their lives and go
>
>millions of miles to someplace they most likely will never come back from
>
>will  not be the intellectual elite (for the most part),
>
>or the middle class.  The people who have nice, cushy lives will not want
>to
>
>go.  People trapped in the ghettos, or
>
>refugees from whatever new Taliban's that arise in the coming centuries,
>the
>
>religious weirdoes (UFO cults, the Hare
>
>Krishna perhaps, Southern Baptists :-), the outcasts, misfits, and science
>
>fiction fans will be the ones who fill out the ranks
>
>of colonization.  Or, in other words, mostly people who may or may not
>have
>
>a  high school education.

Here your wrong.  Misfits like this couldn't gert financial backing from the 
nessisary big busnesses (Colonizatin, isn't done with pocket change) or have 
the skills to operate out there.




>
>Of course, there are certain technological advances that will be necessary
>
>for  mass colonization (and thus any sort of real
>
>colonization), the chief one being a way to get huge numbers of people
>to
>
>Mars  in under a year.  Maybe real nuclear
>
>rockets, antimatter, laser propelled transports, who knows... but something
>
>that makes mass transport in space possible
>
>will be necessary, IMHO.  

The tech isn't the issue.  A motive that justifies building it, is.