<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:8pt"><br><div style="font-family: verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br>>I think it's interesting the way spiders fly. A small spider will<br>>produce a strand of silk that catches enough breeze to carry the<br>>spider up into the air. Maybe it's not technically self-powered<br>>flight; it's a cool trick though. I imagine it as a metaphor for<br>>human diaspora to the stars - our puny boats won't carry a whole<br>>civilization but a largest enough number of seeds cast to the [solar]<br>>wind might eventually be lucky. Given our inherent sense of<br>>self-preservation, those seeds will probably have to be digital copies<br>>else the failure rate would be depressingly
prohibitive.<br><br>I saw an amazing example of this on my NAR level 3 certification flight many years ago. It was a 2pm launch and my rocket veered slightly to the west. As I turned my head to follow I could see hundreds, or perhaps thousands of spider silk strands shimmering in the sky. It was weird, but beautiful. I was captivated by it and lost track of my rocket. I never did recover that rocket and I never saw another example of spider ballooning as magical. <br></div></div>
</div></body></html>