kengr

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Well, from 1492 to 1620 was only 128 years, and things tend to happen a lot faster than that nowadays. It appears that Elon Musk and Ted Branson are vying for the Delos D. Harriman position - I just saw something about expensive space tourism in a printed magazine. I hope that means I'll be able to hold my century party somewhere in space in 2047!

But many, many SF stories have been written based on the idea that early space exploration would be like the settlment of the Americas - various political fringe groups, weirdo cult religions, and similar bunches of crazies would be the first to look for someplace to practice their weirdness, and we'd wind up with planets run by vegetarians, nudists, Amish, old-fashioned utopianists, and people who worship dead pop stars.