The Maine Solution - Updated

> I respectfully disagree. Forming a new nation and society to ones
> tastes has been an underlying motivation for mass migration into
> space, and in several celebrated episodes of terrestrial history. I don't think anybody on this list will disagree with this. But I think the point is that the time to start talking about creating new and better nations will be after a number of orbital settlements have achieved physical and economic independence, which will come quite some years after the first O'Neill-type habitats are built, which will only come after the point that several tens of thousands of people are working permanently in space, which will only happen years after space resources are applied to a massive SPS construction program, which will only come after the first SPS is up there and successfully generating power, which will only happen after a pound to LEO declines to 1/20 or 1/50 current prices. We are currently trying to get onto square one.