Re: GZGL FH - Habitats in Space.

>Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
>> i really can't see space habitats purely for people to live in as
being
>> very important: i think history teaches us that expansion is in
search of
>> resources rather than anything else.
>
>I guess a view *might* suggest that.... but there are more things 
>under Heav'n and Earth, Horatio.....
>
> things like religious freedom account
>> for a tiny fraction of human exploration (sure, the pilgrim fathers
were
>> the first to settle in north america, but it wasn't them who truly
>> colonised the continent).

Religion has played a HUGE part in the expansion of people around the
planet (particularly the Europeans), though in most cases there were
other
factors that were just as/more important to the people doing the
expanding
(like economic gain - East India Company - or opportunity to survive
with a
better life - the settlement of the USA, though N.America was at first
all
about money too...).  Or, to be really cynical, maybe we could say that
religion has provided a moral justification for economic exploitation...

Incedentally, the pilgrim fathers were by no means the first to settle
North America - the "native Americans" were...	They arrived looking for
happier hunting grounds between 20 and 40,000 years ago, depending on
which
archaeologist/anthropologist happens to be yelling loudest at the
moment.
As for Europeans, the Vikings had settlements in North America back in
the
700 - 800 AD period (plenty of archeological evidence for this).  They
didn't last 'til now, but they were settled, in some cases for a long
time,
long before Chris Columbas "discovered" the new world and the pilgrams
crashed into Plymouth rock...

>
>Counter/Otherpoints: 
>1. I can make some stuff in space (crystals etc) that I can't manage 
>in a gravity well.

Yes!  Like space ships!  Way better to fabricate really big stuff like
spaceships in zero-g dockyards - so you'd want stuff like the material
processing there too.  Even if we end up with fancy anti-grav systems to
get stuff out of a gravity well cheaply, there will be structural
reasons
why big spaceships should be built in zero-g (unless you subscribe to
the
Flying Yamato theory that says starships will land in water... in which
case, they need to be atmospheric capable, which is a whole different
story).  Producing high weight, high bulk items like steel (or whatever)
for orbital production of starship hulls would be more efficiently done
in
orbit - lower costs.  You'd have plenty of orbital facilities dedicated
to
things like this that don't directly have to do with expanding your
resources...  If you had an asteroid belt with plenty of raw material,
why
not have a space yard relatively close by - cut down on transportation
costs for materials.

 
>2.  I might need to live in a system for strategic reasons having 
>nothing to do with resources. 

yes.

>3. Some of the inner colonies may have been established with weaker 
>stardrives which limited options so space stations may have been the 
>only approach. 

Or, at least the first approach that made the most sense at the time.

Adrian