The conquest of Outer Space is a first-come, first-serve proposition. It really won't matter what the reasons are we didn't get into outer space. The descendents of those who live outside of Earth's gravity well won't care why we, the current rulers, don't spend the necessary time, effort, and resources to get off this planet. They will be descended from the people who did get off the planet first.
This is a story about Kim the Navigator. The despotic ruler of a future North Korea, Kim puts the safety and preservation of his meagre earthly domain on the table, and risks it all. As a minor, third-rate power, he is constantly harrassed by the dominant political forces on the globe. These established powers especially want to prevent him from achieving nuclear power, for fear he might use it against his local rivals in a bitter regional war.
But Kim has bigger dreams. True, his scientists and engineers are hard at work in an attempt to build nuclear devices. But it is not to nuke his neighbors into submission. He wants to get a critical mass of clever humans off the planet and out of the gravity well. Kim wants to get alot of men and material off planet quickly in order to found a new and powerful dynasty in space. Kim wants to be the Great Ancestor.
Five hundred years before, the European Age of Exploration was begun by Henry, the King of Portugal. It was under his leadership that the Portuguese began to explore the coast of Africa, and chart a new course to the Far East. Shortly thereafter, ships from several European countries had explored the entire globe, and in doing so, soon became its masters.
Kim knows that if he does nothing, his minor country has nothing but poverty and dispair to look forward to. He also knows that the path ahead is fraught with danger, as the reaction products from nuclear rockets - only slightly controlled nuclear explosions - will be seriously harmful to those who remain on the ground. He also realizes that rockets blow up.
Yet the future is the domain of the bold. Kim didn't achieve the totalitarian powers he holds by being a timid wimp. Carved deeply in the flesh of his opponents are the words of his domineering ambition. When friends or relatives have crossed him, it is with terrible consequences. And he is not to be denied his grand place in the future order of the universe by the tick of a Gieger counter.
For Korea to leap frog the other terrestrial powers and dominate the future of Mankind he knows it must place sufficient men and material on the Moon, asteroids, or Mars to create a self-sustaining colony. After a careful analysis by his scientists, he realizes that the abundance of the basic chemical elements is the key to the project's success.
Most of the previous plans for colonizing space which have historically been put forth made two key assumptions that Kim intends to violate. First, they assume that a relatively small mission will be mounted, sending but a few men or robot probes. Second, they assume that the men involved will be returning home to Earth. Kim is instead thinking of a massive, one-way trip, an all or nothing gamble.
For Kim the Navigator, there can be no return home for the colonists, no possibility of any outcome but a successful domination of the terribly harsh surrounding they will find themselves in. It will be a fierce struggle by a nation which has been crowded out of a place in world affairs. This world's affairs.
And so, it is on to the New World. A brave new world.