Magellan notwithstanding, relatively few of his crew were lost to natives. Most of it came from starvation and scurvy. The latter of which, alone, took millions

Magellan notwithstanding, relatively few of his crew were lost to natives. Most of it came from starvation and scurvy. The latter of which, alone, took millions of lives. Both were greatly compounded because of how unpredictable the seas can be. For instance when crossing the Indian Ocean the first time, Vasco da Gamma initially took about 3 weeks. On his way back he ran into foul weather, and the exact same journey ended up taking more than 4 months. He ended up losing about half his crew just during that crossing. We're almost certainly much more technically prepared for space flight than the early explorers were for these great sea voyages. And we're certainly vastly more economically prepared. The only difference is the risk tolerance and funding. Those sailors and captains setting out always understood there was a very real chance that they would never return, and that was simply accepted. And funding was never easy back in the day, but the costs were also much greater relatively speaking. The fantasy this article speaks of about multi-century ships setting out into the stars is something we could achieve for a tiny fraction of what we spend on random wars, yet we don't.