I'd go in a heartbeat, even now.Kommander wrote:One of the big issues as I understand it is the fact that were not sure when to start. Lets say we spend a ton of money on a few probes that will take 30 to 100 years to get to their destination. The fear is that in the intervening time we will develop an even faster way of travel that will have new probes blowing right on by the old ones, making them a waste of money. This gets even worse when were talking about manned space flight. Who wants to go into cryo-sleep for decades or die on a generation ship only to discover upon reaching their destination it's been colonized for decades or centuries via more advanced propulsion.
I grew up watching Gemini and Apollo, and wanted to go along for the nest steps. Which turned out to be folding up the tent and getting the f*** out of the business. Yay, myopic social welfare addicted Democrat congresses. Now we have 10 times as many shiftless douchnozzles on welfare, and still neither a real moonbase nor a functional space station/waystation, both of which would have cost a fraction of the US welfare bill since 1973.
I started reading Heinlein in my twenties, not my teens, and he covered all that and more.
The answer is, we go because we're human, and it's next.
Just effing go.
Let history and advancing technology take care of itself.
If someone catches up going faster, they can pull over and give us a lift.