From: bondage@frontiernet.net   
      
   Rodney Kelp wrote:   
   >   
   > Why not just commandeer a comet and ride it around the galaxy.   
      
      Would this be any faster than a spaceship built from the ground up?   
   Any safer? You still have toput engines on it of some kind, and you   
   still (assuming generation travel and/or suspension and/or life   
   extension) want to be traveling at a minimum of .05-.1c for short (<20   
   light year) voyages, to relativistically meaningful (over .7c) speeds   
   for more distant goals.   
      
      "Ride it around the galaxy" is easy to say...   
      
      
   > Land on it,   
   > build an underground (under ice) colony and live on it. Plenty of water for   
   > fuel cells and possibly hydrophonic vegetable gardens.   
      
      
      Again, for how long?   
      
      
   > Build recording   
   > instrements and observatories on the surface. Transmit the information back   
   > to earth.   
      
      
      Except for some interstellar medium data, and some longer   
   baseline/parallax observations, you're just as far from almost   
   everything in the Universe as Solar System based instruments, except   
   your slowly but increasingly closer target star, and hopefully those   
   instruments at home have already told you if a potentially habitable   
   planet (or whatever it is you're after) already exists there.   
      
      Large optics of your own will only be useful to you when you get   
   there, and want a detailed look at all the planets there, without   
   necessairily visiting all the planets there.   
      
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