From: Joe Strout <joe@strout.net>
After we've used the materials in the asteroid belt, and dismantled
the moons of the giant planets, the obvious next targets are the Kuiper
belt and the Oort cloud.  Our Oort cloud extends about three light
years out from the Sun.  If Alpha Centauri has a similar Oort cloud,
then its cloud overlaps with ours.  So by colonizing the Oort cloud,
you're already starting to colonize the next star.

Where do farcomet homesteaders get a supply of energy? Are you assuming
somebody back near the home star is maintaining a solar power Dyson
sphere beaming energy out to you farcomet homesteaders, and you have
sufficient resources to send back to pay for that service? Or are you
assuming blood family is doing that for you for free? Or area you
assuming the problem of energy from fusion of hydrogen has been solved?
What if it turns out a deep gravity well is the *only* way to fuse
hydrogen continuously, and blowing up hydrogen bombs to get energy is
not feasible for homesteaders, and homesteaders can't rely on energy
beamed from near-star, so this whole idea of yours collapses for lack
of energy to stay alive?

Many months (maybe a couple years) ago I posted my idea for how to
maintain cooperation between trading partners in deep space, namely by
having chains of them stretched out between adjacent stars, so that
each pair of adjacent trading partners are close enough for regular
exchange, thereby maintaining trust. Astronomical data would be the
primary thing traded, in addition to energy fed from near-star places
to further-out places. So a far-out trading post would have a telescope
able to get a different viewpoint on space, and by feeding that data
back to the main society near-star would allow it to directly observe
parallax of semi-near galaxies against the background of very distant
galaxies. Also a far-out observation post should be able to directly
measure interstellar dust particles before they are contaminated by
entering a star system. If the near-star society continues to value new
astronomical data, this might be enough to pay the cost of feeding
energy to the far-out post. That energy would be used both to keep the
post alive and to push it out further where its data would be even more
valuable. Meanwhile new posts could be launched to fill the gap between
the home world and the nearest far-out post. Eventually the farthest
out post would be close to the next star, able to collect energy and
build a thriving colony, which would beam energy back the other way in
payment for news-of-home and fair-share in astronomical data. The
intermediate posts would then be mostly relay points, earning a living
by trading on both sides while maintaining active trust both ways.