Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!SSteinberg.SoftArts@MIT-MULTICS
From: SSteinberg.SoftArts@MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Plymouth and Jamestown
Message-ID: <11822@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Sep-83 17:35:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.11822
Posted: Mon Sep 19 17:35:00 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Sep-83 01:33:44 EDT
Lines: 20

The Pilgrims left the old world because they were NOT being
persecuted and their children were being assimilated.  A few
more generations and they'd have been wiped out by sheer
religious tolerance.

Jamestown was founded as a glassblowing center since it had a
wonderful supply of wood which was as important then as oil is
now.  From what I gather, Virginia was heavily settled by
people trying to make a quick buck.

If we follow these two paradigms we might find the Unification
Church and U.S.Steel as the primary explorers of space in the
next hundred years.

I am not sure if anyone has noticed but the gap between the
discovery of land on this side of the Atlantic and the
establishment of the first colonies ran about 100 years.  If a
similar pattern holds there will be a few specialized
military/scientific bases in space in 50 years or so, but that
the colonization is still far in the future.