In a message dated Fri, 3 Nov 2000 2:11:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Peter
Horton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<< Much more efficient for what? Mechanical surrogates can't LIVE for me.
If we don't get our genepool off this dirtclod then eventually, we will
become extinct. Space is the only hope for continued survival of a species.
Forget short term economic benefits. I am talking about the long term
survival of our species. How do you put a cost on that?
It depends on what you mean by short and long term. I think that over the
next 100 years (short term) we should concentrate on getting contraptions
into space.
We can then find out whether it is worth or not for us to follow. I think it
is basically impossible to start going now. Remember space is essentially
empty. Anything worth while is far away. We are too fragile and live too
short a life to really discuss living space now (or for the next several
decades). In the long term, I think we will go but to throw some people up
into space now will cost too much and will divert too many resources away
from the goal of incrementally building our ability to get wherever we want
to go and come back.
