message 0517

• On Cherryh's 'Inside Outer Space' article (topic: the implications of space travel for civilizations, esp. regarding warfare)

>Date: Thu, 09 Sep 93 21:51:01 -0400
>From: "Nancy Silberstein" <silbersteinn@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
>Subject: Cherryhlist/CJC on Planets

C.J. Cherryh, "Goodbye Star Wars, Hello Alley-Oop", INSIDE OUTER SPACE, 
pp. 17-19

Planets are a commodity of value at two stages of a humanoid species's 
existence: either as a cradle or as retirement home. Otherwise taken, their 
value is negligible, and the preponderance of them - taken with moons, 
moonlets, asteroids, rings and such - might well be classified as 
navigational hazards rather than prizes of great value.... 

The fact is that planets produce little that is unique, and certainly very 
little that would justify the expense of frequent dives into the planetary 
gravity well to bring the item out.  Water, metals of all sorts, soil, 
light, power, agriculture - all these things are potentially more available 
in space than on a world, by the example of our own rather ordinary G class 
star.  Artificial satellites can be built to contain farms that boast real 
dirt...Space stations can be aquatic or residential...

You will gather I do not particularly hold with conquer-the-planets tales.  
I just can't figure out why a species that has gotten out of its own native 
gravity well and gone interstellar in any big way will EVER be motivated to 
use a planet other than as a source of exotica such as woods, perfumes, 
native crafts, artwork - in short, the things a planetary biology will 
produce....But can woods from Earth outvalue those of Tau Ceti II? Perhaps. 
 Perhaps not.  Can they be worth a war?  I doubt it....