Leaving Home...topic 2

[Leslie]

What reasons would be important enough for you to sacrifice life as you knew it and travel to some unknown planet? If you did leave what skills would you be able to offer to a new world?

[Leslie]

Unless I missed some important detail in the beginnning chapter the reason behind this migration was an economical one. I do not think that would be a big enough reason for me to willingly leave my home and everyone I know to travel--FROZEN--300 years to a new world. Maybe if extinction was imminent--say the asteroid heading for the planet type problem--but because of the economy???

[Sam]

Yeah, the economy was a really stupid reason, in my opinion of course, to leave the earth. Especially for a planrt 300 years away! I suppose in retrospect, it could have been in order to make it more relatable to the modern reader. We've faced a real economic meltdown over the last few years, which honestly I don't think many teenagers would understand, and the author is attempting to show what kind of a possibility there is in reaction to that? Or maybe it was the timespan in which she wanted the story to take place that made her think, "Ooh, how can I get all these people in to space, but not really have them in any immediate danger? --Ooh, economics!:

It totally would have been more beleivable if there were astroids involved. Plus, what is up with the lack of space junk? I mean, sci-fi movies and stuff --there's always an astroid belt, rouge satelites to dodge, aliens... Something!

[Leslie]

Very little of the book had to do with the actual flight of Godspeed. Except for the odd comment here and there regarding the navigational team the ship could have been sitting in a parking lot somewhere and the whole thing was a social experiment put on by some television network that had the ship wired to the hilt...or I may just be jaded by too many reality shows.

[Sam]

Les, that would actually be a totally awesome way to end this series. All these eons have passed, and they've been parked on the launch pad for the last [spoiler]350 years[/spoiler], as a social experiment; secretly monitored by the government to see what happens.