Used to be that science barely kept pace, creeping along and finding neat things to play with. Advances today are in leaps and bounds. I truly believe a profoundly inexpensive means for exploration is “just around the corner.” …Well … it’s a lo-o-ong corner.

Exploration is an expensive proposition, the Golden Age of Exploration required the new Capitalist enterprises to manage the investment—Columbus was not financed by Queen Isabella’s Jewels, she extorted money from rich Jewish merchants (at sword’s point, and with the threat of exile or the Inquisition). This was the age of the Merchant Adventurer, the East India Company, and the Conquistadudes. I can’t see the blow-dried wimps running Wall Street today taking these kind of chances.

Besides, financing a few ships or setting up a colony was not as big a drain on planetary resources then as systematically exploiting the solar system would be today, or even the nearest stars, tomorrow. And space exploration will require enormous amounts of energy, technology, and natural resources, which we are pissing away at alarming rates today selling each other pizza, computer games and online marketing services.

I hope I’m wrong, and you’re right, I want to go, but I’m not very optimistic. The future that we are looking forward to now is probably going to be a lot like the Middle Ages, a decaying, recovering civilization obsessed with its Classical Graeco-Roman past. Modern science will not be driving the exploration of space, it will be old bound volumes of scientific journals being re-copied by scribes onto scrolls of parchment because no one will remember how to make paper.

Used to be to the victor, to the brave, to the foolhardy. I like the idea of the adventurous, for here do we place no preconceived notions of conflict, no need for war, not even a premium on competition. All that’s really required is a producer to gather in a LOT of capital and a guide with unerring direction, the selection of a team of fine actors … huh. If the script is right, it could be like making a good movie.

No, exploration is not in our DNA. If it were, there would be no fight or flight choice, we would simply poke our heads in and find out if it’s safe … whatever it is. And if a body should fall back sans head, the next would step up and look to find out why.

Lemmings.

The explorers will be the primary researchers, the ones who wanna know who, what, when, where, how and why on paper, and then make the determination to send our first physical astral explorers … who will probably do it all wrong, but still be honored as being the first.

Then come the pioneering traffic.

The spoils don’t even have to be of direct monetary value. Science will advance, newer, easier methods will be found, pioneers will be born, and the west will open skyward, for Roddenberry’s wagon train to the stars…

This will always win my vote.

We’re going, ER. Likely not in our lifetime, but the path is already blazed by NASA and others. It ain’t gonna stop.

Wikipedia

Remember space.com?

But…
Issues Still to be Addressed for Breakthrough Starshot Project
Still, nothing too insurmountable.

All of the great exploring civilizations eventually tired of it. The Chinese gave up in the 1300s, they figured they already had everything they needed. The Portuguese gave up in the 1400s, and the Spanish in the 1500s. The Greeks and Romans were successful–for a time. Even the Brits had a world-wide empire, but it only lasted a couple of centuries. Th Arabs, the Ottomans, the Japanese, even the USA tried the Empire game, as did most of the major European powers. They all gave up as soon as they realized it cost more to conquer than any plunder you could bring home. Exploration may yield profits for a few who go out there, but most lose their shirt, as do the investors

As the distances get bigger, the costs go up, and the resources available to the colonial powers get used up. The Pacific Basin was conquered by stone age people-family and tribal groups-in sailing canoes made from the meager resources found on coral atolls. Europeans used sailing rigs, rudder designs and magnetic compasses developed by the Chinese, but only Mercantilism and Capitalism could provide the funding, and they lost interest as soon as the profits dried up. Space exploration will require massive government expenditures, and democracies will soon tire of pouring money into exploration that may not yield a benefit for centuries. As for non-democratic regimes, all they want is power, they will spend their resources on consolidating their gains, not risking them on new ones.

We tend to think of Man, with a captial “M”, as striving ever onward and upward, and we tend to remember and honor the great explorations of the past. Its the Ad Astra myth. But most people stay in one place for as long as they can, and usually move on only when they either have no other choice, or want to rip off someone elses stash.

Look at the greatest exploration of all, the Golden Age of 15th and 16th centuries: millions of indigenous peoples died or were enslaved–and for what? So Europeans could steal their gold or use their land to grow dope (sugar, coffee, tobacco, tea).

No, we don’t have an exploration in our DNA. We have a greed gene.

Why Sailing to the Stars has Suddenly Become a Realistic Goal

Never stop and say “Humanity Has Gone Far Enough.” Don’t even think it. Recall H. G. Wells’ “The Shape of Things To Come.” There shall be no rest for the multitude, my friend, no rest for mankind. Ever onward and upward, and should you grow weary, it’s okay. We’ll carry you along.