Re: Re: starship-design: Re: Starship design

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

KellySt@aol.com writes:
 > In a message dated 10/1/97 11:10:19 AM, stevev@efn.org wrote:
 > >Kelly, human history is full of explorers going on one-way trips,
 > >even intentionally.  Just because such a project wouldn't be likely to
 > >get funding from a paranoid hide-bound NASA doesn't mean that it
 > >couldn't happen under different cultural conditions.
 > 
 > Explorers never go on one way trips.  The whole idea was for them to come
 > back and report on what they found, and bring back samples.
 > 
 > In many cases I'ld agree that NASA is hide-bound, but in this one its far
 > more then that.  We as a culture don't like, and won't support throwing away
 > a ship and crew for no good reason, and saving fuel money isn't anywhere near
 > a good enough reason.  I.E. if we can get them back, we must.  If we
 > technically can't get them back, theirs little reason to send them.

You're still missing the point.  You continue to apply _our_ cultural
standards, or more specifically your particular preconceptions about
them, to the process of exploration, but I'm quite sure that it will be
a different culture than ours (although perhaps one descended from it)
that goes to the stars, and it may be one that fully accepts that the
people who go to the stars may not come back.

If human nature was truly such that people only went on journeys of
exploration to eventually return to their place of origin, we wouldn't
be inhabiting every continent on Earth now.