Re: Communication and Travel

You wrote: 

>That and 8+ billion $US a year in militrary aid, not to mention 
civilian >aid, plus all teh foreign donations.

And would not an interstellar colony be recipients of a considerable 
amount of aid?	After all, the initial outlay for such a colony (except 
on the smallest scale on the most habitable worlds) would be quite 
large--I expect the mother country would make a sizeable effort to keep 
the damn thing intact until it can begin contributing to the mother 
country's economy!  

John