Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Interstellar travel

"Turning the ship around" will almost certainly not be an option,
ER — (archived)

for physical and engineering resons; interstellar travel,will almost certainly not be reversible. Once you are on your way, you are committed, and whatever fuel you have left aboard will be just enough to slow down at your destination. As for the rights of the children, alas, they are always the last to be considered. Our own history of immigration on this planet argues that even though the voyage is often taken for the sake of the children, they are never consulted. The circumstances are usually too unforgiving to let them have a veto power because they don't want to leave their friends or go to a new school, an indulgence most immigrant communities cannot afford.

Still, I do agree that humans are not by nature a species which is eager to leave a comfortable environment and strike out into a hazardous unknown. Our extensive experience in all our diasporas suggests we do it only when conditions in the Old Sod become intolerable, and everyone involved knows the exiles will take high casualties. My ancestors emigrated from Spain to the Caribbean basin in the unremembered past, and my grandparents emigrated again to North America around the turn of the last century. For evolutionary reasons alone, my genetic past should have selected for a propensity to resettle in a strange land, but I've never felt any psychological need to leave this country permanently.

The very fact we are meeting in this venue has selected for a subset of the population enthusiastic about space travel, we are all nostalgic for a future we wish to materialize, but we probably are not too well suited for this very reason to envision how it will actually turn out. It is also highly unlikely that the conditions of past immigrations, travel on foot, covered wagon, ship, or jetliner is trivial compared to the vast technical and human resources an enterprise like space colonization will require. Any civilization capable of doing this will probably engage in it for reasons other than economic necessity. The brave pioneers will not be huddled masses, they will be a technical elite motivated by psychological or social reasons. My money's on extremely prosperous and well-educated religious fanatics and political dissidents, and they'll probably go because they have to, not because they want to.

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