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Date: Sat, 17 Feb 90 02:05:22 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #56

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 11 : Issue 56

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Why we would need a planet.
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Date: 16 Feb 90 05:55:11 GMT
From: phoenix!elturner@princeton.edu  (Edwin L Turner)
Subject: Re: Why we would need a planet.

In article <1990Feb15.204943.8621@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>In article <1990Feb15.195633.27342@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Patrick Brewer) writes:
>>	We need planets just to get the resources for existence.
>
>In principle, this is wrong.  There is no reason why a purely
>space-based civilization could not exist, given reasonable future
>technologies.

Right in principle, but it may be legitimate to still wonder what
will/would be true in practise.  As you may have noticed, we are not
a perfectly logical species.  We (or most of us) may simply choose to
live on planets because we want to for some poorly defined reasons.

You can make a good case that it would be both possible and sensible for
us to be devoting major resources toward living on/in/under the sea,
but we are not to any important extent.  We could, but so far we
haven't.

Japan (again) offers an even starker example.  Almost the whole population
crams itself into the minority of Japan's land area which is not
mountainous.  This results in amazingly severe crowding with profound
social/economic/cultural consequences.  Why don't the Japanese live in
the mountains?  Certainly, they could; apparently they just don't
want to.

Ed Turner			"Uso ni chiru
phoenix!elturner		 ha mo nashi yomo no
				 kane no koe."
or
elturner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU            - Chori 1778

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End of SPACE Digest V11 #56
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