REM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Elton Maas) (02/21/86)
G> Date: 13 Feb 86 22:45:25 GMT G> From: nike!im4u!ut-sally!ut-ngp!cgeiger@ucbvax.berkeley.edu G> Subject: Why does everyone want to leave this planet? G> Well, why? While I am very interested in astronomy and all that G> sort of thing, I don't understand why anyone would want to G> permanently migrate to another planet. First, that's a very narrowminded way of asking the question. Most of us in fact don't want to go to another planet and be trapped in its gravity well instead of this one, we want to miagrate into space where we are in freefall and thus can move around without having to carry our weight and can use incremental methods to change orbit and travel just about everywhere in the Universe we want. The rest of this is generic for leaving Earth, rather than specifically going to settle on another planet. G> There's just so much *here* to see and learn, certainly enough to last G> a lifetime! Most importantly, this is our home. As for me personally, I want to experience zero-gee, especially I'd like to find out what's like to make love in zero-gee, I think it would be a lot more comfortable than on a bed in one-gee. Also I have a bad back (flattened disc) and might actually prefer not having the top of my body press down on the weak spot trying to crush it and eventually succeeding. Also I want the OPTION of getting away from thermonuclear war when it happens on Earth. With hundreds of mobile colonies out in space, most of them can leave the Earth/Moon system in the event of war and survive while everybody on Earth dies. But most of the time I'll probably stay on Earth while others go up there. Even if I stay here, I'll be more comfortable knowing that if everyone on Earth including myself dies in a war, at least human life will continue in space so that all our efforts to survive and evolve the past 4.5 billion years won't have been in vain, and copies of some of my genes and some of my inventions&ideas will survive in space-based computer files and/or human minds living in space. G> Frankly, I hope all of you gung-ho types will get the opportunity to G> leave and will take advantage of it. That way all the exploiters, G> conquerors, or, to be charitable, "adventurous" types (what's so G> unadventurous about staying here and learning about your own planet?) G> will leave, and I can be at peace here. There is quite a difference between somebody who wants to explore virgin territory and turn it into a place where people can live, and somebody who wants to conquer somebody else, taking from them what they originally explored and developed. Of course some people fall in both categories, but where there are people tending in one direction or the other I think the ones who will go to space will be those who prefer developing virgin territory and the ones who stay here will be the ones who prefer conquering other people and stealing from them, and I think you are making the wrong choice if you don't like conquering but choose to stay on Earth forever.