Space travel? How far can we go?

[Mars90000000]

Well, as you are all aware, in the real life, you can not simply... time warp. (d'uh )

So then, how far do you think humans will get in terms of colonizing other planets. Do you think it will be possible one day to actually have humans living on other planets? Will we ever begin to colonize our solar system? Our galaxy? Is it even possible?

How far can we go, realistically, based on the technologies currently discovered? And what future upcoming technology do you think will allow us to push the boundaries of human space travel?

Discuss.

[UmbralRaptor]

In the long term (>100 years), I wouldn't be surprised if there are permanent outposts on other planets/moons/asteroids (compare with oil rigs and antarctica, though). Ditto unmanned missions to the nearest stars.

I'm also leaning towards transhumanism as being the big thing that *might* make interstellar travel happen.

[Vanamonde]

Any time you're dealing with exponential development curves, there's no telling where and how fast things will go. Life on earth took about 3.5 billion years to go from single cells to multicelluar creatures. 400 million years after that, dinosaurs were strolling around. 200 million years after that, Kittyhawk to the Sea of Tranquility only took 66 years. There are more scientist alive and working right now than at any prior time in human history, computer procesing power doubles about every 18 months, and so on. There's no guessing where we're going to be in 100 years, let alone 10 million (the average lifespan of a species, or so I've read).

[Nikolai]

I expect that reliable fusion rockets will be the technology that opens the Solar System to human exploration. The fuel is everywhere, and the specific impulse is high. This will allow us to colonize further and further outposts in bodies that circle the Sun.

Colonizing comets in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud will give us practice in erecting self-contained societies with limited resources, while allowing us to mine abundant fuel in the frozen volatiles. (There are billions of them, but they occupy an enormous volume; each one is largely isolated from its neighbors by vast amounts of space.) It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to think that we might hop from the Oort Cloud to its equivalent around nearby stars. By that time, I expect human lifetimes will be much greater than they currently are.

[zapy97]

i think a fission powered rocket will be well suited to next gen (after me i am 15) people going toward other planets, like you take raw energy from the fission, then create hydrogen atoms,and use nuclear fussion to recreate the plutonium as a by product, only this technology is way advanced

Edited October 4, 2012 by zapy97

[longbyte1]

We'll probably colonize the Moon in this century if not Mars, but we'll soon have web servers in an Earth orbit and possibly on the Moon. Talk about information at the speed of light!

Someone's bound to invent a "get across the solar system quick, easy, and cheap" method of space travel, and that will surely get us on Mars pretty quick.

I don't know about transferring energy through beams. It's probably being developed, but that will make space colonies grow much faster.

In the distant future, humans will become very diverse in culture. They will overcome most challenges that the Universe does. However, they will face many more risks than ever before. Probability can predict the probability of a race's survival, but it cannot accurately predict how far it will prosper.

[nhnifong]

I'm going to be the sceptic unfortunately and say that humans are only ever going to live on earth. We are symbionts with the rest of this world, and it requires massive expenditures of energy for us to live in isolation from it.

Some other life form, possibly artificial, might one day colonize pockets of this solar system, energy permitting.

At best, we may be the cultural ancestors of these beings, meaning that our ideas, and if we are lucky, entire simulations of our minds will be the only traces of humanity in space.

Edited October 4, 2012 by nhnifong

[PsychoLucario]

Eh a few months ago I woulda said local solar system, but after this warp thing and the fact that in the last 3 years quantum teleportation, previously impossible has reached the limit of line of sight teleportation, so I think when actually developing warp tech, I think it will exponentially advance while we actually develope it

[Nibb31]

I'm with nhnifong. The problem is energy and physics. Those laws are not likely to change. It will always require LOTS of energy to boost mass into orbit. Even if we find better propulsion methods, the energy must come from somewhere, and I'm not sure that the energy potential of our planet is large enough to spend it on going into space.

[Aescwulf]

I'm a little bit of a skeptic aswell. I don't think we will be colonizing in this century. I think we would have outposts on the moon and Mars ( moon would make a great interplanetary shipyard ) . The problem with colonizing the moon or the mars is that our current space technology aka the rocket doesn't carry enough payload, so you will have to do things all over again on the new planet.

But if we could and we were going to colonize other planets then well that's a different story because we as a species are only suited to live on a planet at sea level exactly like ours to the very ratios of air etc so as we travel on a ship ( generation ship ) you will have to change your bodies to suit your new planet otherwise you won't survive there is no other planet that's a complete clone of Earth so basically on this new colony on a new planet they won't be able to visit earth because well they won't be the same to people on earth they might look the same. But they won't be the same so basically you'll be creating sub species of homo sapien.

[Awaras]

I'm with nhnifong. The problem is energy and physics. Those laws are not likely to change. It will always require LOTS of energy to boost mass into orbit. Even if we find better propulsion methods, the energy must come from somewhere, and I'm not sure that the energy potential of our planet is large enough to spend it on going into space.

A space elevator would be a game changer if it was ever constructed.

If a space elevator used cabs with electric motors for moving up and down the 'beanstalk', the cabs going down would effectively be producing energy. In a situation where there is roughly equal mass going down as there is going up, the system would operate with a very small outside power input. If we take the possibility of asteroid mining and orbital factories seriously, soon there might be more mass coming DOWN the elevator than there is going up, making the space elevator a net PRODUCER of energy instead...

[Aescwulf]

A space elevator would be a game changer if it was ever constructed.

If a space elevator used cabs with electric motors for moving up and down the 'beanstalk', the cabs going down would effectively be producing energy. In a situation where there is roughly equal mass going down as there is going up, the system would operate with a very small outside power input. If we take the possibility of asteroid mining and orbital factories seriously, soon there might be more mass coming DOWN the elevator than there is going up, making the space elevator a net PRODUCER of energy instead...

You could make a space elevator produce energy if you use huge solar panels to harness the suns energy to send it back down to earth

[Awaras]

You could make a space elevator produce energy if you use huge solar panels to harness the suns energy to send it back down to earth

No, I mean that the cars going down the space elevator to earth would not need external power (they are falling after all), but would actually generate energy through regenerative braking, the same way an electric car can recharge its battery when braking or going down hill.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Awaras

[SunJumper]

I think major colonies on most worlds are out of the question. The profit gained from sending materials back to Earth must be greater than the costs of the round trip space trip. Simply mining for Iron on the Moon or Mars will not be feasable unless we flat out run out of Iron here.

Though if I could whip off to Pluto, that'd be cool. The planets would probably mostly serve as tourism, if that.

[phoenix_ca]

If the Alcubierre drive is proven to be a feasible method of travel, it's possible that the excitement that comes from exploration will push people toward exploring our solar system (at least). Big if there.

If we don't kill ourselves (that's another big if), we're going to go eventually. It's the only choice for the continued survival of our species.

[The Stinger]

We already have the technology to put a base, or even a small settlement, on Mars. So mars is a realistic destination.

Venus is a bit harder, it's not possible with our current technology to put a settlement on ground level.

Some suggested "sky cities", but that might not be feasible at the moment.

Other celestial object might be out of reach or not possible at the moment.

It's estimated that there are two billion Earth-like planets in the Millky Way alone.

But we need a better propulsion system if we want to reach them in a short time.

That's why I'm excited about NASA looking into the possibility of a warp drive.

It's human nature to explore, so space really is the next frontier.

The only limiting force space exploration has is funding.

[Nikolai]

It will always require LOTS of energy to boost mass into orbit.

Then it kind of boils down to how efficiently we collect and use it, doesn't it? There is enough energy from the Sun hitting 100 square meters on the Earth to launch a kilogram of mass at escape velocity every seven and a half minutes or so. And that doesn't count the amount of energy we can produce if we duplicate the Sun's energy-generation mechanism.

[Nikolai]

I think major colonies on most worlds are out of the question. The profit gained from sending materials back to Earth must be greater than the costs of the round trip space trip.

What makes you think that the point of creating major colonies on other worlds is to have them get materials and send them back to Earth?

[Nikolai]

I don't know about transferring energy through beams.

The technology for doing this with microwaves is well-proven. Goldstone, California (1975) and Grand Bassin, Reunion Island (1997) conducted experiments that transmitted in the range of tens of kilowatts of power. An experiment in Hawaii transmitted twenty watts over 92 miles.

[bitbucket]

It is my opinion that we will not make any significant progress towards creating any sort of self-sustaining off-world settlement before human civilization exhausts Earth's non-renewable energy potential.

Fossil fuels provide 86% of our energy. Oil will be gone in 50 years, natural gas will be gone in 60, and coal will be gone in 150 years at current consumption rates, which will only increase as oil and gas grow scarce. Current alternatives to fossil fuels can't be adequately developed to make up the difference. Unless we make some major breakthroughs with fusion in the next 10-20 years, forget space colonization, we won't even be able to maintain an industrialized civilization.

[Kosmo-not]

It is my opinion that we will not make any significant progress towards creating any sort of self-sustaining off-world settlement before human civilization exhausts Earth's non-renewable energy potential.

Fossil fuels provide 86% of our energy. Oil will be gone in 50 years, natural gas will be gone in 60, and coal will be gone in 150 years at current consumption rates, which will only increase as oil and gas grow scarce. Current alternatives to fossil fuels can't be adequately developed to make up the difference. Unless we make some major breakthroughs with fusion in the next 10-20 years, forget space colonization, we won't even be able to maintain an industrialized civilization.

Maybe if a lot of the population would shift their attention away from the personal lives of celebrities to issues that actually matter, then we may be able to overcome this challenge.

[Whptheenah]

Time warp isn't possible yet, but usage of dimensions is.

There are four dimensions. Right? Wrong! There are actually eleven dimensions, the remaining seven are just 'curled up' so they become disguised to appear as if they are part of the first four. In other realities, these dimensions may be uncurled. Analysis states that for varieties of all dimension curling and uncurling to exist, there must be at least 10^500 different realities. My theory is that if we can access these 'curled dimensions' in our reality, we can travel along them, cutting the time needed to travel by unknown quantities.

[Optical9090]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_one

[phoenix_ca]

Time warp isn't possible yet, but usage of dimensions is.

There are four dimensions. Right? Wrong! There are actually eleven dimensions, the remaining seven are just 'curled up' so they become disguised to appear as if they are part of the first four. In other realities, these dimensions may be uncurled. Analysis states that for varieties of all dimension curling and uncurling to exist, there must be at least 10^500 different realities. My theory is that if we can access these 'curled dimensions' in our reality, we can travel along them, cutting the time needed to travel by unknown quantities.

Wince you're referencing string theory, I think and adaptation o a popular addage regarding quantum mechanics is in order:

If you think you understand string theory, you don't understand string theory.

[Cowzgomooz]

I am not a rocket scientist so forgive me if some things are wrong. Space travel to other planets is not to hard if you look at the way Juno travels. I watched a documentary about space travel and supposedly Juno travels by using planets' orbits to boost it therefore making it faster as it goes. If we could do this(but faster it took Juno many years to get past Jupiter) with humans we could easily ( I didn't say safely) get to other star systems but it would take a while since we do not posses warp drive/light speed technology. I think we have a lot of potential with our rockets. I mean we are expecting to send men and women to the moon and Mars in the next 10-20 years!