On Tuesday, September 12, 2000 7:15 PM David Lubkin lubkin@unreasonable.com
wrote:
> Space colonization is better than planetary colonization for technological
> man or uber-man; the value of avoiding gravity wells has been well-known
> for decades.
Glad someone agrees with me.:)
> But: Just as we should go to space in part to avoid putting all our eggs
> in one basket, I think we should also have some solutions that fail-safe.
> Some of us sentients should live in habitats that are not dependent on
> advanced technology. That come with a biosphere that is capable of
> sustaining organic, sentient life without use of technology.
You got me there! This is true. I just wonder about the cost.
Terraforming Mars without nanotech will take a long, long time and lots of
resources. Terraforming it with nanotech seems pointless, because if you
can do that, then you probably don't need to.
The price of one terraformed world is high compared with many space
stations, space cities, hollowed out asteroids, and all manner of small
scale space colonies. Space is a pretty big and cheap basket. Mars is a
small and expensive one that requires one to cook many of the eggs
beforehand.:)
> Earth qualifies. A terraformed Mars or areoformed sentients on an
> unmodified Mars qualify. Stardancers (Spider Robinson) qualify. Uploads
> or AIs in a rad-hard, fault-tolerant architecture might qualify. I'm
> skeptical about hollowed-out asteroids and L-5; I like them, but I haven't
> seen designs that don't require on-going use of technology to sustain
> life.
You guys go for Mars. I'll light out for the stars.:)
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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