If and when Musk gets Starship/Superheavy operational, Musk wants to begin Mars colonization in his lifetime. That is the 2030's, not hundreds of years. He said he wanted 1 million people living on Mars by 2050. There probably won't be that many, but there may be hundreds, mining, working, prospecting, setting up habitats and greenhouses, metal smelting equipment, excavation equipment. Starship will make it not impossible.
Vahe is talking about colonizing exoplanets. Other star systems.
The gas giants are made from gases, precluding human colonization there, and even if one or two exoplanets are deemed suitable for life, it's unclear whether the general public would support building colonies on Earth-like exoplanets because many people will say that extrasolar travel to a few exoplanets is beyond mankind's technological capacity.
If and when Musk gets Starship/Superheavy operational, Musk wants to begin Mars colonization in his lifetime. That is the 2030's, not hundreds of years. He said he wanted 1 million people living on Mars by 2050. There probably won't be that many, but there may be hundreds, mining, working, prospecting, setting up habitats and greenhouses, metal smelting equipment, excavation equipment. Starship will make it not impossible.
Vahe is talking about colonizing exoplanets. Other star systems.
The gas giants are made from gases, precluding human colonization there, and even if one or two exoplanets are deemed suitable for life, it's unclear whether the general public would support building colonies on Earth-like exoplanets because many people will say that extrasolar travel to a few exoplanets is beyond mankind's technological capacity.
It's not beyond mankind's technological capability. Look up Project Orion - interstellar travel is technically possible now, and has been since the 1970s. There are a variety of other possible technologies that would enable extrasolar human flights, as well.
It would take a massive effort costing - likely literal - trillions of dollars, but we could do it if the entire world decided to.
However, I don't see that happening within the next 120-150 years, so hundreds of years from now it is.
It's not beyond mankind's technological capability. Look up Project Orion - interstellar travel is technically possible now, and has been since the 1970s.
I seriously doubt that. The unknown unknowns are there to bite us. For example, in the 70's the Kuiper Belt had not been discovered yet. Our bomb-tosser could have happily plowed right into a KBO with no warning at all.
There's also the problem of developing mechanical systems that can last long enough to deliver the colony to the target star while successfully facing all the unknown unknowns.
Finally, even if somehow the technology was there, there's the human factor. How are we going to convince people to go on a multi-generation one-way trip? How are they going to convince the following generations to remain committed to the initial goals instead of flushing them like the Divine Right of Kings?
We're nowhere near ready for interstellar travel right now and the 70's never even came close. And personally, I don't think it will ever happen unless we figure out some way to get around that pesky speed-of-light limit and so far that doesn't look likely.
Most people who object are ones who don't want their tax dollars to be used. If it is billionaires like Musk and Bezos spending their money, most don't really care. What most people don't realize is the money is not spent IN space, but on the earth providing a lot of aerospace jobs, as well as agriculture, mining and manufacturing, medicine, and electronics that goes along with colonization.
Not sure I totally agree with that. A lot of people think that even private space companies are a waste of money (even though it's not tax dollars*).
I've heard "This money would be better spent helping problems on Earth before spending it on colonizing Mars". It's not that these people believe that dollar bills are literally going into LEO on not coming back down, but that the money spent ON space projects (as opposed to IN space) would be better spent on other things, like humanitarian efforts for example. If you actually wanted to spend money IN space, you would first need essentially a separate economy (like a nation state with people living there and consuming stuff) that operated in space.
*And it depends on how you look at the "tax dollars" thing too. This is sort of a rationale to be made that if billionaires were higher taxed (so that being a billionaire was impossible) the money spent by these billionaires on space would now be in the hands of the state, which could then invest in their own space projects as a state-run project (NASA or ESA for example). Of course the counter-argument is that state-run projects are always more inefficient.
Lately I've been hearing arguments not for directing the spending to humanitarian efforts but to fix climate change issues - sort of like a "Terraform Earth First!" movement. The argument is that the combination of climate change, population growth and nuclear proliferation this close to the climate tipping point is putting the existence of human life next century in serious jeopardy. Since a viable Mars colony that is independent enough to survive on its own is not possible before then, the development money should be spent on halting and reversing climate change.
This is very different from the parochialism that Robotbeat suggests. It's immediate personal survival
vs future species survival
Most people who object are ones who don't want their tax dollars to be used. If it is billionaires like Musk and Bezos spending their money, most don't really care. What most people don't realize is the money is not spent IN space, but on the earth providing a lot of aerospace jobs, as well as agriculture, mining and manufacturing, medicine, and electronics that goes along with colonization.
Not sure I totally agree with that. A lot of people think that even private space companies are a waste of money (even though it's not tax dollars*).
I've heard "This money would be better spent helping problems on Earth before spending it on colonizing Mars". It's not that these people believe that dollar bills are literally going into LEO on not coming back down, but that the money spent ON space projects (as opposed to IN space) would be better spent on other things, like humanitarian efforts for example. If you actually wanted to spend money IN space, you would first need essentially a separate economy (like a nation state with people living there and consuming stuff) that operated in space.
*And it depends on how you look at the "tax dollars" thing too. This is sort of a rationale to be made that if billionaires were higher taxed (so that being a billionaire was impossible) the money spent by these billionaires on space would now be in the hands of the state, which could then invest in their own space projects as a state-run project (NASA or ESA for example). Of course the counter-argument is that state-run projects are always more inefficient.
Lately I've been hearing arguments not for directing the spending to humanitarian efforts but to fix climate change issues - sort of like a "Terraform Earth First!" movement. The argument is that the combination of climate change, population growth and nuclear proliferation this close to the climate tipping point is putting the existence of human life next century in serious jeopardy. Since a viable Mars colony that is independent enough to survive on its own is not possible before then, the development money should be spent on halting and reversing climate change.
This is very different from the parochialism that Robotbeat suggests. It's immediate personal survival vs future species survival
Yeah we have been arguing for decades though that a large space environment would force people to live downwind and downstream from themselves and that could very well produce the methods and technologies to better live that way on Earth. So the argument has been made the other way - Space "colonization" may be the best or only way to force people to learn the techniques to sustainably live on Earth.
If and when Musk gets Starship/Superheavy operational, Musk wants to begin Mars colonization in his lifetime. That is the 2030's, not hundreds of years. He said he wanted 1 million people living on Mars by 2050. There probably won't be that many, but there may be hundreds, mining, working, prospecting, setting up habitats and greenhouses, metal smelting equipment, excavation equipment. Starship will make it not impossible.
Vahe is talking about colonizing exoplanets. Other star systems.
The gas giants are made from gases, precluding human colonization there, and even if one or two exoplanets are deemed suitable for life, it's unclear whether the general public would support building colonies on Earth-like exoplanets because many people will say that extrasolar travel to a few exoplanets is beyond mankind's technological capacity.
and they’d pretty much be right. (Not that it is impossible but a whole bunch of stuff we need to be invented first—powerful magnetic pushers for Project Orion, etc—and we need just more capability in space.) But no one is really seriously proposing that any time soon. I have no idea why you would run a poll on this.
(anyway, there are also a whole bunch of moons of the outer planets plus Kuiper belt objects and stuff in the Oort cloud to keep us busy.)
It's not beyond mankind's technological capability. Look up Project Orion - interstellar travel is technically possible now, and has been since the 1970s.
I seriously doubt that. The unknown unknowns are there to bite us. For example, in the 70's the Kuiper Belt had not been discovered yet. Our bomb-tosser could have happily plowed right into a KBO with no warning at all.
Just like the Voyager and New Horizons probes have. Oh wait.
A problem easily solved by looking ahead with telescopes.
There's also the problem of developing mechanical systems that can last long enough to deliver the colony to the target star while successfully facing all the unknown unknowns.
There are engineering challenges, yes, but the technology to solve those challenges is easily within our grasp. Also why spare parts and machine shops exist.
Finally, even if somehow the technology was there, there's the human factor. How are we going to convince people to go on a multi-generation one-way trip?
That's essentially what European colonizers did when moving to the "New World." I don't think there will be any lack of volunteers for leaving Earth behind forever.
How are they going to convince the following generations to remain committed to the initial goals instead of flushing them like the Divine Right of Kings?
We're nowhere near ready for interstellar travel right now and the 70's never even came close. And personally, I don't think it will ever happen unless we figure out some way to get around that pesky speed-of-light limit and so far that doesn't look likely.
For some definition of "ready"
It has been technically possible to return to the Moon at any point after the 70s also, but we weren't "ready" to do so.