Re: [FT universe]

----------
Samuel Penn replied to 
>>    Beth Fulton
> 
> > For instance if you look at the costings
> > of just one of the privately funded dutch explorations (during the
age
of
> > sail), which went looking for tradeable items (for instance the
spices
from
> > Indonesia etc), you'll find that it comes out at an amount greater
than
> > what NASA spent on the Voyager missions.
> 
> Slight difference in that the Dutch were funding sailing expeditions
> at a time when sailing was very common. 'All' they were proposing was
> going a bit further, using tried and trusted technology.
> 
> Currently, to start any big scale space expeditions requires cutting
> edge technology (assuming you want to go colonise somewhere), which
> hasn't really been tried and tested, It not only requires lots of
> money, it requires spending that money on things most people don't
> really understand.

Yes, but currently we're not colonizing anywhere either.  So our steps
will
be something like:
Let's build a better space station.  Let's build a lunar base.	Let's go
visit Mars.  Let's build a space station and send that to Mars.  Let's
build a lunar base--on Mars! (etc.)
  By the time we get around to actually colonizing, we will be using
tried
& true.  For a very interesting book that goes into a proposal on the
steps, see _ The Millennial Project _ by Marshall Savage.  I have some
reservations about his proposed politico-economic systems but the basic
path seems reasonable.