From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Fri May 18 2001 - 01:26:33 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
> ...And it belongs to the first one there with the wherewithal
> to enforce her will. spike
The point is not get there with a self-rep machine, stripmine
the iron mountain and ship produce back to earth. Getting there
with a smart enough machine is a sufficiently high threshold
already, not to mention shipping the stuff back and deorbiting
it (getting a kiloton of stainless steel profiles falling on
the top of your head out of the clear blue sky is probably not
the best way to wake up on Sunday morning).
The point is getting to the first rock outside this gravity well
and to *stay* there. How lucky we are to have a big rock at our
doorstep so that we don't have to design for microgravity and
relativistic lag is still tolerable for teleoperation. (We're so
lucky I'd clean suspect Anders putting it up there if this was
a space RPG, to up the pace of the game).
Once we've gotten that sustainable bridgehead in place, the solar
system is ours.
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