100-Year Starship some way off

Personally I favor both options. There is an absolute need for space colonies to guarantee the human race in case something happens here, and in my opinion, to utilize resources other then those on this quickly shrinking planet. Eventually though there will be a need to leave the solar system to guarantee the human race in case something happens to our 'neighborhood'. If the technology for the robots and zygotes comes way ahead of a habitat that can make the eventual journey then I'm all for using robot mommies to guarantee we don't wink out existence due to some unforeseen catastrophe. Complex life and in particular intelligent life may be exceedingly rare in this universe.

On SSP I am in favor of increasing research money to give it a reasonable chance of success. 2 to 3 orders over nuclear is very expensive, given that nuclear is considered so expensive and risky that private industry won't touch even with large guarantees from the government. But it would bring it much closer then ever before.
Brooks

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote: