The idea that we can not only travel between stars but also colonize many uninhabited terrestroid planets is a myth of American sf. Surely Hermes, Avalon and Dennitza are as unreal as Barsoom, Perelandra and Narnia? Or have so many extrasolar planets been detected by now that some of them must be terrestroid? But how many would be Earth-like enough to be habitable and also as yet uninhabited? And how is anyone going to travel to them and colonize them?
Get mankind off Earth, yes. Think that extrasolar planetary colonies are a likely solution to Terrestrial problems, no.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you are missing a point I thought writers like Poul Anderson made plain. They advocate colonization of other worlds not because they expect that to directly affect or resolve problems on Earth, but as a means of hedging our bets. Doing so means the human race could survive even if Earth was somehow destroyed. Extra-Solar colonies would also make it impossible for any fanatical ideology to imprison the entire human race within it's stifling straitjacket.
I keek an eye at what is discussed at the Centauri Dreams website to get some idea of what kinds of new worlds are being found. I hope a planet is soon discovered which has life!
Sean
Sean,
There is sometimes an idea that population can be relieved by extrasolar colonization but it is not always clear which idea is present in which text.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that is not what Poul Anderson believed, and I'm convinced he made that plain in many of his works. I can imagine some gov'ts pressuring bothersome malcontents to leave for another planet. But that would be for relieving POLITICAL pressure on the regime, not an attempt to reduce "excess population." We see this idea of urging discontented persons to leave Earth very clearly in ORBIT UNLIMITED.
Sean
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