It's probably going to sound a bit odd from an Earth perspective, and like Kelsam is trying some things that an Earthling would consider a naive, overly-obvious, hopeful approach, that isn't likely to work in real life.  As for whether it flies in Europa, who knows.

Kelsam did not go straight out and invent the saner parts of Earth scientific infrastructure; he has no way of knowing what sorta-worked on another planet.

He is taking what Europans would consider a more natural approach to this sort of thing.

As Kelsam analyzes the issue, the fundamental problem with non-Spark science and engineering is that it will take a lot of time and cost a lot of money to build it up to the point where it can compete with just having powerful Sparks run out and do crazy shit immediately.

If a sufficiently large or powerful group of people were motivated to construct Sparkless Science, they could (as Kelsam sees it) offer large monetary prizes for the sort of science or inventions that are learnable and duplicable by non-Sparks and push the frontier of that particular subvariety of human knowledge, over time.  Continue this prize-offering process for a while, and eventually Europa as a whole would have accumulated science and engineering to a level where it could compete with some Sparks.  But the expenses would be immediate, and the benefits much delayed by comparison.

From Kelsam's perspective, then, the problem reduces to, "How do I give a sufficiently net-wealthy group of people today, an incentive to care about what level of science and engineering exists a couple of centuries later, such that they pay prize money for it now?"

Having thus reduced the problem, the drawing-a-straight-line solution is... immortality!  If people were immortal, they'd have more incentive to care about what happens centuries later!  Also this is a long-term project and Kelsam might need to steer it for a while, because he doesn't trust anyone else to see it from exactly the right angle.

This early set of investigations is why Kelsam is a bit older biologically than he looks -- he went out to investigate rumors and legends about immortality methods, like any Europan would consider the obvious course of action in his situation.  Albeit the results he got are due too much to Adventures and Things Happening that do not properly scale.

It's probably going to sound a bit odd from an Earth perspective, and like Kelsam is trying some things that an Earthling would consider a naive, overly-obvious, hopeful approach, that isn't likely to work in real life.  As for whether it flies in Europa, who knows.

Kelsam did not go straight out and invent the saner parts of Earth scientific infrastructure; he has no way of knowing what sorta-worked on another planet.

He is taking what Europans would consider a more natural approach to this sort of thing.

As Kelsam analyzes the issue, the fundamental problem with non-Spark science and engineering is that it will take a lot of time and cost a lot of money to build it up to the point where it can compete with just having powerful Sparks run out and do crazy shit immediately.

If a sufficiently large or powerful group of people were motivated to construct Sparkless Science, they could (as Kelsam sees it) offer large monetary prizes for the sort of science or inventions that are learnable and duplicable by non-Sparks and push the frontier of that particular subvariety of human knowledge, over time.  Continue this prize-offering process for a while, and eventually Europa as a whole would have accumulated science and engineering to a level where it could compete with some Sparks.  But the expenses would be immediate, and the benefits much delayed by comparison.

From Kelsam's perspective, then, the problem reduces to, "How do I give a sufficiently net-wealthy group of people today, an incentive to care about what level of science and engineering exists a couple of centuries later, such that they pay prize money for it now?"

Having thus reduced the problem, the drawing-a-straight-line solution is... immortality!  If people were immortal, they'd have more incentive to care about what happens centuries later!  Also this is a long-term project and Kelsam might need to steer it for a while, because he doesn't trust anyone else to see it from exactly the right angle.

This obvious first approach is why Kelsam is a bit older biologically than he looks -- his first act was to go out to investigate rumors and legends about immortality methods, like any Europan would consider the straightforward course of action in his situation.  Albeit the results he got are due too much to Adventures and Things Happening that do not properly scale.

It's probably going to sound a bit odd from an Earth perspective, and like Kelsam is trying some things that an Earthling would consider a naive, overly-obvious, hopeful approach, that isn't likely to work in real life.  As for whether it flies in Europa, who knows.

Kelsam did not go straight out and invent the saner parts of Earth scientific infrastructure; he has no way of knowing what sorta-worked on another planet.

He is taking what Europans would consider a more natural approach to this sort of thing.

As Kelsam analyzes the issue, the fundamental problem with non-Spark science and engineering is that it will take a lot of time and cost a lot of money to build it up to the point where it can compete with just having powerful Sparks run out and do crazy shit immediately.

If a sufficiently large or powerful group of people were motivated to construct Sparkless Science, they could (as Kelsam sees it) offer large monetary prizes for the sort of science or inventions that are learnable and duplicable by non-Sparks and push the frontier of that particular subvariety of human knowledge, over time.  Continue this prize-offering process for a while, and eventually Europa as a whole would have accumulated science and engineering to a level where it could compete with some Sparks.  But the expenses would be immediate, and the benefits much delayed by comparison -- perhaps for centuries.

From Kelsam's perspective, then, the problem reduces to, "How do I give a sufficiently net-wealthy group of people today, an incentive to care about what level of science and engineering exists a couple of centuries later, such that they pay prize money for it now?"

Having thus reduced the problem, the drawing-a-straight-line solution is... immortality!  If people were immortal, they'd have more incentive to care about what happens centuries later!  Also this is a long-term project and Kelsam might need to steer it for a while, because he doesn't trust anyone else to see it from exactly the right angle.

This obvious first approach is why Kelsam is a bit older biologically than he looks -- his first act was to go out to investigate rumors and legends about immortality methods, like any Europan would consider the straightforward course of action in his situation.  Albeit the results he got are due too much to Adventures and Things Happening that do not properly scale.

It's probably going to sound a bit odd from an Earth perspective, and like Kelsam is trying some things that an Earthling would consider a naive, overly-obvious, hopeful approach, that isn't likely to work in real life.  As for whether it flies in Europa, who knows.

Kelsam did not go straight out and invent the saner parts of Earth scientific infrastructure; he has no way of knowing what sorta-worked on another planet.

He is taking what Europans would consider a more natural approach to this sort of thing.

As Kelsam analyzes the issue, the fundamental problem with non-Spark science and engineering is that it will take a lot of time and cost a lot of money to build it up to the point where it can compete with just having powerful Sparks run out and do crazy shit immediately.

If a sufficiently large or powerful group of people were motivated to construct Sparkless Science, they could (as Kelsam sees it) offer large monetary prizes for the sort of science or inventions that are learnable and duplicable by non-Sparks and push the frontier of that particular subvariety of human knowledge, over time.  Continue this prize-offering process for a while, and eventually civilization as a whole would have accumulated science and engineering to a level where it could compete with some Sparks.  But the expenses would be immediate, and the benefits much delayed -- perhaps for centuries.

From Kelsam's perspective, then, the problem reduces to, "How do I give a sufficiently net-wealthy group of people today, an incentive to care about what level of science and engineering exists a couple of centuries later, such that they pay prize money for it now?"

Having thus reduced the problem, the drawing-a-straight-line solution is... immortality!  If people were immortal, they'd have more incentive to care about what happens centuries later!  Also this is a long-term project and Kelsam might need to steer it for a while, because he doesn't trust anyone else to see it from exactly the right angle.

This obvious first approach is why Kelsam is a bit older biologically than he looks -- his first act was to go out to investigate rumors and legends about immortality methods, like any Europan would consider the straightforward course of action in his situation.  Albeit the results he got are due too much to Adventures and Things Happening that do not properly scale.

It's probably going to sound a bit odd from an Earth perspective, and like Kelsam is trying some things that an Earthling would consider a naive, overly-obvious, hopeful approach, that isn't likely to work in real life.  As for whether it flies in Europa, who knows.

Kelsam did not go straight out and invent the saner parts of Earth scientific infrastructure; he has no way of knowing what sorta-worked on another planet.

He is taking what Europans would consider a more natural approach to this sort of thing.

As Kelsam analyzes the issue, the fundamental problem with non-Spark science and engineering is that it will take a lot of time and cost a lot of money to build it up to the point where it can compete with just having powerful Sparks run out and do crazy shit immediately.

If a sufficiently large or powerful group of people were motivated to construct Sparkless Science, they could (as Kelsam sees it) offer large monetary prizes for the sort of science or inventions that are learnable and duplicable by non-Sparks and push the frontier of that particular subvariety of human knowledge, over time.  Continue this prize-offering process for a while, and eventually civilization as a whole would have accumulated science and engineering to a level where it could compete with some Sparks.  But the expenses would be immediate, and the benefits much delayed -- perhaps for centuries.

From Kelsam's perspective, then, the problem reduces to, "How do I give a sufficiently net-wealthy group of people today, an incentive to care about what level of science and engineering exists a couple of centuries later, such that they pay prize money for it now?"

Having thus reduced the problem, the drawing-a-straight-line solution is... immortality!  If people were immortal, they'd have more incentive to care about what happens centuries later!  Also this is a long-term project and Kelsam might need to steer it for a while, because he doesn't trust anyone else to see it from exactly the right angle.

This obvious first approach is why Kelsam is a bit older than he looks -- his first act was to go out to investigate rumors and legends about immortality methods, like any Europan would consider the straightforward course of action in his situation.  Albeit the results he got are due too much to Adventures and Things Happening that do not properly scale.