Well, it has taken eight years since first dreaming up the idea for this book, but now the pdf file of proofs are here, and I'm just wrapping up the final typos. Above, the opening page of Chapter 7.
It will be said, of course, that expending energy on such a project as the colonization of space would be to callously ignore the plight of so many unfortunate people on Earth. But while those circumstances must of course be addressed, the same could be said of anything that does not address them. What is the use of a painting, or a multi-million-dollar art museum? What is the value of a poem? Considering the real threats to our planet and civilization, on a cosmic scale the colonization of space is not an unnatural, technocratic stunt, but a natural human species insurance policy.
Some will say, also of course, that the human species will only continue to destroy and waste off of Earth, as we have on Earth. But that takes only the sour view. Humanity also has done magnificent, wonderful and magnanimous things. As an extraterrestrial put it to an astronomer, in the movie 'Contact', based on the Carl Sagan / Ann Druyan novel, 'Humanity...you have such terrible nightmares, and such wonderful dreams.'. Every person decides where they will lean in this spectrum. I am choosing to gravitate towards the dreams and the light.
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