Tau Ceti: Prime real estate for High Frontiersmen

--- In ssi_list@... "Combs, Mike"

> OK, here's an idea I'd like to through out. The very recently
> discovered thing about the Tau Ceti system (the fact that it has
> about 10x the number of asteroids and comets as our system) which

I like the idea. If we assume no physics breakthough discovery (FTL
travel) then hunting for habitable planets beyond Tau Ceti is going
to take a lot more time and effort.

A series of robotic probes and construction equipment sent to TC can
start the work of mining and processing material and maybe even
construction. Alternatively, a generation ship of sorts arrives and
the first order of business is to unfreeze the sperm and eggs and
hatch some kids and increase the genetic diversity. Then start
mining, processing and building onto the generation ship to
accomodate the new people being born. Then start the construction of
a Habitat and then another.

It's a seeding program and once seeded has to grow its population
locally. I can't foresee sending colonists from Earth simply to
expand the population at TC. Too expensive to build a generation
ship for the purpose of just shipping people.

I'd think that each generation ship could be justified for seeding a
new system, unless the environmentalists got on the case and said
that humanity is a cancer that should be killed rather than infect
the cosmos.

So what happens to the colony when it starts to develop? Will it
never catch up the the wealth and technical sophistication of Earth
because its population is too small?

TangoMan