[geoschmo]

Originally posted by bearclaw:
The key differance between space travel and ocean travel is that there were obvious financial benifits to traveling to the New World and Asia. Trade, gold, land, exotic plants/animals, etc. Without some sort of financial reason to go to space, all this could be moot.

Actually we know the resources are there that would make the trip worthwhile. It's only a matter of getting the costs down to a level where it makes economic sense to go to space to get them. Tourism is the idea that gets everybody excited in the short term, and if that helps drive the technology the more's the better. But eventually it will be a minor part of the picture as industry starts to move to space for finding raw materials and manufacturing. Not in our lifetime likely on a large scale, but it will happen eventually.