SPACE TRAVEL

[Tau]

Alrighty then.

Manned private spaceflight will be viable and affordable to the common man by 2030. By the year 2040 we should have our first commercially viable fusion reactor, and by 2055 we will have made our first manned round-trip to and from Mars. By 2060 we will have our first permanent lunar base. By 2100, laws and regulations relating to the consumption of alcohol and other controlled substances in space will be relaxed, allowing for someone to be high as fuck while already high as fuck.

[CommanderKobialka]

I think it will take about another 50 years to have routine trips to Mars. What needs to happen first is a Mars Colony, such as Mars One which goes up in 10 years or so.

[Tau]

In my opinion, if we send out a colony somewhere, we need to have the capacity to either bring the crew back or make the colony permanent and self-populating.

[CommanderKobialka]

Well Mars One is permanent. The people going are never coming back. Unless technology catches up with them that is. It basically means that the mission is pretty pointless. However. The moon landing was pointless wasn't it? But it was the expensive step that we needed to take in order to assure future trips to the moon. So the Mars One mission and others like it are pretty important even though they probably wont increase our knowledge about the planet at all.

[cats]

Mars 1 isn't permanent, it's supposed to be three years, something like that. The structures themselves are permanent, but the crew will be replaced every cycle. I say that 2023 is too optimistic, though. Maybe in the 30s there'll be a permanent settlement, with tests in the 20s. The idea of cheap manned space in the next 50 years might bear fruit, now that some private companies are getting involved.

E: Wait, why is anyone even trying to get to Mars when we don't even have any structures on Luna? That's just stupid, like trying to buy an army in an RTS without fist buying a bank.

EE: I mean we could easily do that within the next ten years. Then we would have a place to launch rockets that need only a fraction of the thrust to reach escape velocity, no atmosphere, somewhere easily sustainable, and it took two weeks to get there in the 60s.

EEE: Oh, and we wouldn't have to wait two and a half years for the moon to come back around.

[fr0stbyte124]

There's no realistic reason to ever colonize Mars. Ever. It's worse than Earth in every conceivable category. Even if an asteroid hit the Earth and wiped out all life, Earth still wouldn't be as crappy as Mars.

The moon? Sure. Plentiful sunlight and the prospect of Helium 3, low gravity R&D and powerful observatories. Plus it is a practical distance to be useful to Earth. F**k Mars.

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

There's no realistic reason to ever colonize Mars. Ever. It's worse than Earth in every conceivable category. Even if an asteroid hit the Earth and wiped out all life, Earth still wouldn't be as crappy as Mars.

The moon? Sure. Plentiful sunlight and the prospect of Helium 3, low gravity R&D and powerful observatories. Plus it is a practical distance to be useful to Earth. F**k Mars.

But mars is the perfect war planet! It even has it in the name!

[Iv121]

Well see Mars contains valuable metals as far as I know ... Plus human curiosity - to colonize couse we can !

Last but not least I think if an asteroid hits earth (I mean of significant size) there wont be much left so yea Mars suddenly becomes an attractive alternative.

[JensenBreck]

I guess it's time to add my opinion of where space travel is going.

My predictions:

Spoiler:

2025: All major space agencies shut down.

My more hopeful predictions:

Spoiler:

2020: Second series of Lunar landing missions begin.
2025: Further Probes sent to Titan
2030: First launches of a Permanent Lunar base.
2035: First Permanent Lunar base crew launch.
2050: First manned Mars mission.
2060: Asteroid brought into Lunar orbit for mining.
2090: First Permanent Martian Base.
2130: First Manned mission to Titan
2160: First Permanent Base on Titan
2250: First Human to leave the solar system
2350: Probes sent to stars that are home to possible Earth like planets
2650: Earth begins construction of the first generation ship to another solar system.
3500: Attempts at making a Warp Drive begin.
4500: Attempts to terraform Mars begin.

Will add more as seen fit.

[fr0stbyte124]

Last but not least I think if an asteroid hits earth (I mean of significant size) there wont be much left so yea Mars suddenly becomes an attractive alternative.

It would take a pretty big asteroid to make Earth less hospitable than a planet with 0.6% the atmosphere of Earth and incapable of holding onto liquid water or protecting the surface from solar radiation (because no magnetic field.)

Even if life got so bad on Earth that everyone had to live inside bubbled cities, guess which planet is the one we can actually get the material to make it? Seriously, I just looked up lists of reasons to colonize Mars. The best ones were along the lines of "Of all the s**thole places to live in our solar system, this one is the closest to almost not being completely inhospitable to any sort of life, past or future, second only to literally anywhere on Earth except for maybe an active volcano." It's like people just want to colonize Mars anyway and are hunting for reasons to justify it.


@Solar
I think your dates are too conservative. 2060 is projected by some to be when we hit a technology singularity. After that, all bets are off. I wouldn't be surprised if we could reshape the laws of physics within the next century or two.

[Iv121]

Well if you go like that there are no planets worth of colonizing for the next few lightyears from earth, Mars is the easiest one to fix as it is actually possible to create an oxygen rich atmosphere there.

[Crash Override]

Mars One is permanent

They will be sending 4 people till the colony has a acceptable population.


And to create a warpdrive,we are very near of it.
We just need a better sensor [Or a new Einsten] to make everything possible.

[Tau]

I wouldn't be surprised if we could reshape the laws of physics within the next century or two.

Spoiler:

[CommanderKobialka]

Mars 1 isn't permanent, it's supposed to be three years, something like that. The structures themselves are permanent, but the crew will be replaced every cycle. I say that 2023 is too optimistic, though. Maybe in the 30s there'll be a permanent settlement, with tests in the 20s. The idea of cheap manned space in the next 50 years might bear fruit, now that some private companies are getting involved.

E: Wait, why is anyone even trying to get to Mars when we don't even have any structures on Luna? That's just stupid, like trying to buy an army in an RTS without fist buying a bank.

EE: I mean we could easily do that within the next ten years. Then we would have a place to launch rockets that need only a fraction of the thrust to reach escape velocity, no atmosphere, somewhere easily sustainable, and it took two weeks to get there in the 60s.

EEE: Oh, and we wouldn't have to wait two and a half years for the moon to come back around.

Last I checked, it stated quite clearly on the website that those who go on Mars One will stay on Mars for the rest of their lives. We aren't capable of sending something to Mars with enough fuel to return. They may add on to the base every few years but they're not coming back unless technology catches up with them.

[CommanderKobialka]

reply to Solars predictions:

We are already super close to solving the problem of warp, or FTL drive, and terraforming is a pretty simple technology. I would be surprised if we weren't doing it within the next 150 years...