If any government or other large organization does develop interstellar travel, then the purpose will not be to satisfy the wanderlust of individual astronauts! So why might it happen? Colonization seems unlikely. Pure science and exploration seem to be the only plausible motives. I hope that this can happen. Development of space and the saving of the Terrestrial environment should be not counterposed but interconnected. However, space development has to be mainly for:
solar energy;
mining the asteroids;
asteroid defense;
self-sustaining habitats off Earth;
Martian colonization? (I still find this implausible as yet.)
Interstellar exploration is not an immediate prospect.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, any kind of practical interstellar travel will have to pay for itself, one way or another. Once that is done, then indulging in wanderlust becomes possible, even useful.
No, if space travel, even within just the Solar System, becomes feasible, I can see off Earth colonization being possible. E.g., political and religious malcontents might use it as a means of getting away from people they consider oppressors, to live as they thought best.
And Elon Musk hopes to begin the colonization of Mars within two or three years. If you read Robert Zubrin's book THE CASE FOR MARS, you would see a detailed explanation of how that can or might be done.
And I think some people should at least THINK about interstellar exploration.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that for a long time space travel was monopolized by governments.
Over the last few years the number of launches has vastly increased, and now you can more or less buy a trip just because you want to go.
You have to be a billionaire to do it, of course... for now. But it will get steadily cheaper.
I'm in my late 60's, and if I have a statistically average lifespan I expect to see thousands of people in space by the end of my life; quite probably millions by the end of the century.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling! The problem with gov't monopolizing of space travel is how this, and other projects, always seem to eventually become stagnant, sclerotic bureaucracies. Which is why I'm happy Elon Musk and his rivals have shaken up things, at long last! I'm in your age range, being not much more than a year younger than you. I wonder, can I dare hope to live long enough to go to the Moon???? Probably not, to be realistic. Oh, well! And I hope what you said about thousands and then millions of people living off Earth happens SOON! Ad astra! Sean
But won't the ecological crisis hit us first?
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks for reposting one of my comments, which I had not known had disappeared.
We should also be thinking in terms of trying to make sure we no longer foolishly keep all our eggs on Earth, but put some on Mars. If some kind of crash analogous to what happened in the past of THE WINTER OF THE WORLD happens, we should hope civilization survives on Mars. After all, we see hints in WINTER about Mars being BLUE in that story when ancient records says it was once red. Indicating Mars had been terraformed?
Ad astra! Sean
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