| Re: Space traders?
Richard Branson? He's my age! (literally; I met him when I was at university, and so was he) He's not going to get much interplanetary travelling done (without the struldbrugs club, at any rate)
But it's interplanetary travel we're getting to here, not interstellar. Within the solar system, developements on our present technology will work; indeed, our present technology would suffice, if barely, and at incredible expense. Unfortunately, apart from Earth, colonisation of the solar system is largely a question of self contained habitats, sealed environments not that different from spaceships in their own right (training grounds for the generation ships to come)
Still, trading is possible: megatonnes of metal against crates of champagne, industrial processes far too dangerous and polluting to be allowed on Earth's surface producing riches to be glided down, exchanged for the luxuries only available on the planet.
Good preparation; but trade between points at most light hours apart isn't the same as centuries of travelling.
I believe. I believed in '69, and have never lost faith, even if I no longer think it will be from the United States that the expansion will come. It will cost fortunes, both in manhours and human life, but the swarming instinct will out.
Possibly even before global warming gives us other priorities; but I suspect that's over optimistic |