Jose wrote:

So there you are, floating on a hunk of mast, a thousand miles from
anywhere, in the middle of the ocean - an ocean nobody has crossed
before and most people think is close to the big waterfall at edge of
the world. You have three days before you die of thirst, a week or
three before you starve.

Oh. There are sharks.

What's your point? It's better to die slowly?

No - it's better to stage your hypothetical ship wreck closer to a beautiful
hypothetical tropical island, just over the horizon from where your
dimwitted skipper sailed by yesterday, and you're found on the beach by
these knock out gorgeous babes that think you're a god, and give you
anything you want. Geez, you need to develop some optimistic imagination
Jose.......


how'd the QM get in this?

The QM is how we think of ocean travel now. It was harder back in the
days when the world was flat.

my position is that the ones operating on
terra firma (or to a lesser degree water) have an advantage over
someone operating in a vacumn @ plus/minus 2-300º (or whatever)
millions of miles from earth.

But the ones operating in a vacuum have the advantage of NASA.

You pick your tools to match your challenge. That's all.


But their tools are millions of miles away... opps...
I agree that without some outreach to things that might be, could be, may
be, we'd be in trouble. It's just that today we have so much advance
knowledge of what it is.. What is more worrysome than go or nogo to Mars is
near space, and I have no qualms about being dominant there, no matter what;
but, I've already said that, or at least that it was my main concern.