[ExI] Alpha Centauri

[Jeff Davis]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The thing that always makes me chuckle in these kind of conversations is the unstated assumption that the whole point of creating a vast infrastructure devoted to dragging a bunch of people out of a deep gravity well and allowing them to survive long-term (effectively indefinitely) in a space habitat is to travel to another deep gravity well and throw all the poor sophonts down the damn thing again.
>
> WHY?!?!?!

I agree a hundred percent.  Escape from the gravity well will initiate
a whole new space-based culture.  Then, a couple of generations later,
when the advantages of life outside the gravity well become clear --
freedom from sovereign "capture" prominent among them -- the notion of
life as inherently Earthbound will fade. The idea of going to the
stars will remain, but with the solar system abuzz in its own
expansionist moment, the character of that impulse will change because
independent living in space will have become routine, while advanced
automation in a micro-gravity environment will make large projects the
norm.

So finally, the trip to the next star will not be to the star itself,
but rather to the vast source of easily-exploitable raw materials on
the fringes of the (Centauri?) system.

As David Lubkin described it: rock-to-rock out to the edge, jump the
gap,... and you're there.

Best, Jeff Davis

     "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                                    Ray Charles