Putting humans in space - the purpose behind it.

I've been getting emails with all the new posts for a while now without adding one myself.

I found out about space habs when they were featured in Science News about 40 years ago when I was a teenager. There seems to be absolutely no mainstream interest in them whatsoever right now.

But one name for them back then was "Space Ark." Those were the days of the dawning of the environmental movement. People weren't sure how long this earth was going to last. If we didn't blow it up in some godforsaken war, popular opinion was that we would pollute it to death.

And that was the purpose I saw for space habs: To give our biosphere another chance in another time and place, in case this one became unlivable.

I still see that as a major reason for developing space habs.

I have seen a lot of posts about the science and the engineering behind the problem. And that's fine. But every once in a while someone raises the question of finance. Or of how the colonists will do without being connected to Earth.

We have to answer those questions, too. If we don't, maybe we never get to square one.

These colonies mean more than giving us a way to exploit the asteroid belt for resources, or to alleviate the effects of over-population. So, can we do what needs to be done to at least put them on the global agenda? I don't see them there right now.

Some may think, well, that's just too far down the road. No one wants to think about crossing that bridge right now.

But don't some of you wish our grandfathers had planned a little better than they did? We're living in the future they created; and so are most of them!

And that's where my spiritual training comes in.

There's a company called "Seventh Generation." They get this name and concept from the Iroquois.

"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."

Why did they think like this? Though we can see how it makes sense as a rational policy for any society that wants to survive, there is another obvious answer: Because the decision makers of today will be some of the major participants in the future that they create.

And that is not something that most people in this "modern" world realize or believe.

I thought I would drop in to express a few of my more weighty concerns. I hope it does not dampen the enthusiasm of the engineers in the group.

But it seems to me there is more to engineer here than just a very complex piece of hardware. Someone will also need to "engineer" the will of this and future generations to build it and man it.

Good luck!