Military applications, religious motivation, and non-voluntary reasons.

Hi, Ed!

The British expansion across the Atlantic was driven partly by economic concerns, but also to thwart their chief military foe of the exploration era, Spain. The Spanish derived an enormous amount of wealth from the Americas, and the British privateers were more than happy to take some of it home to Elizabeth. To do this, they had to be able to outsail the Spaniards and outgun them, and to know their routes better than they did -- hence, explore them.

Later, the British Empire became dependent upon holding not only large territories like India and Canada, but small strategic locations, like Gibraltar and Hong Kong. Some of these were Pacific Islands. You had to be able to find them to take them and hold them, so exploring was a military skill with additional economic payoffs.

We all know the story of the Puritan search for a place to establish their New Jerusalem, and the effect that had on exploration, but people forget that part of the impetus for Spanish and Portuguese exploration was to propagate the Catholic faith, which task was also pursued vigorously at home through the good offices of the Inquisition. Like certain religious parties we know of today, they believed that to die in pursuit of this goal, however violently one converts heathens, was a martyrdom that got their heavenly ticket punched no matter what else they may have done in life. Exploration as a Godly pursuit.

And there are the involuntaries: the sailors in spite of themselves, kidnapped and made to serve; those who sold themselves as indentured servants in order to escape poverty in their native land; debtors and other convicts shipped to colonies meant to empty the prisons; political personae non grata and their families, which account for a significant number of the rebel Irish "colonists" to Australia. Exploration as social engineering, inflicted on the explorers.

There are two things I think of often when we make these comparisons of exploration then and now.

First, even though it was dangerous then, and the areas were vast and unknown, one always knew there would be air when going to other places on Earth, that gravity would work the same, that survival equipment was relatively portable, and so forth. The only exception to this is the exploration of Antarctica, which requires special equipment and skills, but as the Shackleton expedition illustrated, even a harsh terrestrial environment is survivable with luck and pluck in the face of stupidity. Space is nowhere near as forgiving.

Second, it's highly unlikely that we'll be able to send the kidnapped and the felons into space as a reliable workforce. Both groups would be trying to escape (some things don't change), and the felons as a group can't read very well, so probably wouldn't be very good at operating all that expensive machinery.

Add to that the frightening prospect of a group of religious fanatics establishing a lunar colony, and I'd just as soon kiss most of the past goodbye as a model for Reasons to Move to Space.

Curiosity. Profit. Survival (long-term). These are the only motives that carry over. Military too, alas, though I hope we can start to think in species terms rather than as deadly adversaries as we move off-planet. The American (or maybe Anglophone, since things seem to be coalescing that way) team vs. the European team vs. the Russian team vs. the Asian team would give us a little of that competitive flavor that seems to keep us moving...

Regards--
Mary Anne