"You couldn't escape from people on Earth. Cold and vacuum and raw rock and everything, the Belt was better."
-Poul Anderson, "The Industrial Revolution" IN Anderson, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume 2: The Queen Of Air And Darkness (Framingham, MA, 2009), pp. 48-80 AT p. 51.
Well, I prefer people! However, if enough people think like Mike, then the human race will colonize the Solar System. Poul Anderson and Larry Niven have shown that mining the Asteroid Belt will be profitable even if making it comfortable to live there will take a lot more work.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I sympathize with Michael Blades, even if I myself would be all too likely a terrible colonist off Earth! We NEED people like Michael Blades, Nicholas van Rijn, Gunnar Heim, etc., if we are ever to truly advance. People willing and able to take risks and dare everything they have.
I hope some of your own descendants end up settling the Moon and Mars, or planets orbiting other stars!
Sean
Correction, I meant ANSON GUTHRIE, a character and his download from the HARVEST OF STARS books. I don't know how I came up with "Gunnar Heim."
Sean M. Brooks
Sean,
But Gunnar Heim of THE STAR FOX belongs on a roll of honor with Blades, van Rijn and Guthrie?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Drat it! I'm chagrined! You are right! I was wrong to think I made a mistake! Yes, I'm amazed at how I forgot Gunnar Heim was the viewpoint character in THE STAR FOX. Yes, he belongs in the list of daring, risk taking, innovative entrepreneurs I listed.
Sean
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