Talk:Airship/@comment-66.25.92.108-20150207150203/@comment-24891101-20150207192244

Where would they go? Their destroyed moon? The issue, over and above having the techbase to achieve orbit, is that there's no destination. Even if, with Dust, they can somewhat easily amass the delta-v to get to orbit, they don't necessarily have a good enough drive system to approach the relativistic speeds necessary to reach another solar system. There's no guarantee that there's a suitable planet in-system, or even nearby. It'd take an absurdly long time, subjectively, and it would therefore have to be a generation ship, which is a much more involved undertaking.

Nor is there the political will to leave. It would involve dedicating massive resources for a project which would not produce fruit for generations. No politician would support that.