saber964 wrote:IMHO the first couple of colonial expeditions would be very, very expensive and would likely be a multinational effort, with multinational colonists. IIRC Beowulf was the first extra-solar colony. If you look at the last names of the people you get a multi ethnic mix of names that are IIRC German, Russian, Spanish, English, Chinese, Japanese, Polish etc. in origin. Later as more and more colony expeditions depart it would get less and less expensive to mount expeditions. As the colonizing efforts get less expensive it would get easier for single nations, ethnic groups or other groups e.g. Grayson or Pontifex to mount expeditions.
Aye. I really don't think the rich folks will pack up and bugger off on the first ships - colonisation has to be proven as viable. See Manticore, which launched well into the Diaspora.
I figure the first few colonies will be "proof-of-concept" efforts. That means public backing, not private. Technology may make it viable to ship millions of people off and if it's relatively cheap, then there's your answer to the climate crisis. Richer countries already pay poorer ones to reduce environmental damage - why not get people to leave the planet entirely?
Let them ride off into deep, dark unknown space in ships built by the lowest bidders. A scattergun of experiments. And if any prove remotely viable, pull out the stops for the third generation of colonies.
Part of the issue is the unknown - there's far more incentive to go somewhere you know can home you. The Manticore colony launched late with the benefit of improved technology, left behind a trust to send forth any advances and went to a surveyed system with three habitable planet. They were immensely well funded and actually did pay for a number of top-up colonists whilst simultanously selling land and titles to wealthier and skilled colonists.
Compare with the Grayson colony, which launched much earlier into the unknown with crude technology, no backup and only the barest confirmation of a planet orbiting in the habitable green zone based on telescope observations. The majority of rich people aren't going to do that.
As for the Madras sector, all I can say is we Scots love our curries.