More generally there are a number of problems with this thread:
1) It is probably an innately pretentious and silly question that I am asking. The sort of thing that seems like a wothwhile exercise when cycling home after a few beers but which is more likely to result in pretentious waffle in practise.
2) I have obviously failed to satisfactorily communicate what I am after in this thread.
3) Even ignoring the above failings the EvC audience are probably not ideally suited to this question anyway. People here are obviously far more inspired by the practical considerations of travelling to and colonising another planet than they are considering some pseudo-intellectual pretentious nonsense about mankinds intellectual and cultural legacy.
Now that there is finally some kind of serious on-topic discussion I won't scupper your thread any more. But I just wanted to say I haven't stopped grinning all weekend at the idea of Straggler getting more and more frustrated at the refusal/inability of most EVC members to give a straight and simple answer to a straight and simple question.
What topped it for me was the fact that you foresaw the problems that might arise, and tried to nip them in the bud in your OP, but this was totally ignored. It was like writing in large letters across your brow: "NO HEAD SHOTS ALLOWED!"
I think this thread has proved that EVC members are like neither Rimmer nor Lister, but instead like the Cat.
Unherdable.