question:  Why does Dunbar continue to tell stories of an enchanting paradise?
context: TO EACH HIS STAR by BRYCE WALTON "Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood," old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken section of space was surrounded by a beckoning red rim? Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line, taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where he was going. But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. Russell had no idea now how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun that never seemed to get any nearer. When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough for Dunbar. no—Dunbar had to start talking about a place they could go where they'd never be apprehended, in a system no one else had ever heard of, where they could live like gods on a green soft world like the Earth had been a long time back. And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. "You're still sure it's the sun up ahead ... "That's the only one—and it's a paradise. "No life, boys, nothing," Dunbar laughed. "Paradise is it," Russell whispered hoarsely. "Paradise and there we'll be like gods, like Mercuries with wings flying on nights of sweet song. They make you think of nice green worlds all running waters and dews and forests thick as fleas on a wet dog. If it's got air we can breath, and water we can drink and shade we can rest in—that'll be paradise enough for us.
output:  To motivate them to keep persisting until they arrive
options:  To motivate them to keep persisting until they arrive  To convince himself that he is choosing the correct star  To assuage his crewmen's minds before they inevitably die  To lure the Johnson, Alvar, and Russell into a trap