Rutan no go for July 4th?

Anecdotal evidence that I have read indicates that more than half of the pilgrims died in the first winter. At the time this was considered terrible, but not catastrophic enough to induce the survivors to leave the new world. Societical development since then has likely engendered a mindset deeply intolerant of similar losses (particularly of children) where they to occur to a technically advanced society of the present.

It's possible that even life in a despotic regime is preferable to a similar risk of annihilation. Depends on the despot I suppose.

Some despots ARE the risk of annihilation.

This leads to an interesting discussion: Who will decide whether or not to pull out of a colony? What if the colonists decide that screw the government, we're staying? And at some point it might even lead to independent space-bound nations, such as a 'country' of colonies on Mars, for example. I'm not sure if this will be with or without a war, though. I can see how some nations, or worse, corporations, might be possessive of their colonies...

Anyway, I believe it is a very exciting time to live in. I look forward to seeing what can happen these next 50 years...

One earliest examples of how a colony "folded" is Norse Greenland. There are no records in the later years that the norsemen paid tribute to the king of Sweden, as they were required, and contact became scarse. There is some record of ships visiting, but there is also some archeological evidence to point out the over the final century, the colony was slowly, and in most cases methodolically abandoned. In the end only a few stragglers remained and then they too died. The mother country never cared enough to save the colony, much less get upset when the colony didn't pay its taxes (in defacto, making itself independant).

this is off topic but afaik there was no united norway or united sweden at that point in time and therefore neither any king to pay tribute to in the modern sense of the word - viking colonies was either for settlement or supporting trade routes and both kinds were very selfsufficient/independent (or abandoned fast if they were not). btw i think it's commonly agreed that the colony succumbed to starvation due to a number of different factors

back to topic isn't the american independence war or similar a better analogy?

I think any colony sufficiently far away from earth would have to be self sufficient, on the Norse/Polynesian model, then on a British mercanstlist model.

i agree on selfsufficiency, my point is about the political aspects

anyway a lot of science fiction deals with this topic (like peter f. hamilton's Fallen Dragon), recommended if you enjoy sf

If the new colonies are to provide no return to the home country/planet, why would they expend so many resources and risk financing their founding? I should think some mutual benefit would have to be possible, even in the long-term. Colonies will only be sustainable on a mercantilist footing.

Although financing would be quite a trick I would think that some colonies would be formed by people who just want to get away from this place. Quite a trick is probably an understatement for that though. For a colony intending to cut itself off I would imagine it would have to be completely self funded.

Colonies have been founded by religios groups before, and religious groups tend to be able to amass wealth.

Rutan WAS planning to give 60 days of notification

"This flight won’t qualify for the prize, because SpaceShipOne carried only Melvill. Rutan said he had hoped to start a 60-day countdown toward an X Prize attempt within a matter of days, but the investigation into the anomaly may affect that hoped-for timetable." ---->

http://video.msnbc.com/id/5261571/