--- Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hey, if the president has his way with the national treasure, we will be blowing large clumps of money in the near future to go back for ... what???
Well Tom, there's more to exploring space than taking information from other places and relaying it back here. This planet isn't going to last forever. Some time in the next couple 100,000 years there's going to be another cataclysmic meteor impact of the type that wiped out the dinosaurs, and even if we're able to divert that, the Sun is eventually going to expand and swallow up the Earth.
So mankind's destiny must be to move out from the Earth, first to nearby places like the Moon and Mars, and eventually to other solar systems. It will take thousands of years. We've wasted 30. Why waste more? It's going to be a long, slow process, but it needs to begin eventually, and I'm selfish enough to want to live to see permanant bases on the Moon, and people on Mars, so sue me. :-)
Besides, as archivists, we'll need to have found somewhere safe to put our stuff before the Sun goes nova.
David Breneman david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx
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