by what year will humanity colonized tha solar system?

Question

Assuming we humans don't destroy each other from nuclear warfare or blow earth into prehistoric rocks how long will it take for the humanity to colonize the solar system; maybe go on establish a galacticempire- think starwars? just curious. (not like im packin' up for andromeda tommorow)

Answer 1

only for the rich, it appears.

Answer 2

A very interesting question! Naturally, there is no answer, just speculation. Wikipedia has a whole suite of articles concerning colonization of space in general and of various specific bodies (Mars, the asteroids, Europa, etc).

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

Of course, there are very good reasons for colonizing space.

(1) Resources -- to support a growing human population. (Here I must add that I think the Malthusian fears are greatly overblown, if confined to the Earth and its resources our population would stabalize nicely).

(2) Survival -- So long as we are confined to one planet all of our eggs are in one basket. By colonizing the Solar System, and later parts of the galaxy, we will ensure that catastrophe won't end it all.

Finally, we should colonize space because

(3) It is there, and colonizing it will be a great challenge and adventure. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. We need challenges, where better to find them than the final frontier?

But this is getting off your question of a possible time table. Obviously, I'm no expert and having given a lot of forethought to the matter. I would say the following could be reasonable:

2030 - Human landing on Mars
2040 - Founding of permanent Lunar colony
2075 - Founding of permanent Mars colony
2100 - Asteroids being mined for resources
2300 - Human colonies on moons of Jupiter
2500 - First manned mission outside solar system

Trying to project into the future is very hard. Just look at the past. In 1906 the airplane had just been invented and couldn't yet be used for any practical purpose, internal combustion engines weren't very common, telephones were rare, and... well, you get the picture.

Anyway, just some speculation. Worth 10 points? You decide.

Answer 3

A very interesting question! Naturally, there is no answer, just speculation. Wikipedia has a whole suite of articles concerning colonization of space in general and of various specific bodies (Mars, the asteroids, Europa, etc).

Of course, there are very good reasons for colonizing space.

(1) Resources -- to support a growing human population. (Here I must add that I think the Malthusian fears are greatly overblown, if confined to the Earth and its resources our population would stabalize nicely).

(2) Survival -- So long as we are confined to one planet all of our eggs are in one basket. By colonizing the Solar System, and later parts of the galaxy, we will ensure that catastrophe won't end it all.

Finally, we should colonize space because

(3) It is there, and colonizing it will be a great challenge and adventure. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. We need challenges, where better to find them than the final frontier?

But this is getting off your question of a possible time table. Obviously, I'm no expert and having given a lot of forethought to the matter. I would say the following could be reasonable:

2030 - Human landing on Mars
2040 - Founding of permanent Lunar colony
2075 - Founding of permanent Mars colony
2100 - Asteroids being mined for resources
2300 - Human colonies on moons of Jupiter
2500 - First manned mission outside solar system

Trying to project into the future is very hard. Just look at the past. In 1906 the airplane had just been invented and couldn't yet be used for any practical purpose, internal combustion engines weren't very common, telephones were rare, and... well, you get the picture.

Answer 4

Nobody really knows. When I was a kid, back in the 1960s, everybody was "sure" that by the year 2000 there would be industrial cities on the moon and at least one permanent colony on Mars. Obviously, they were wrong.

But they had reason for their optimism. Man (or anyway "White men") had gone in the preceding 40 years from barely getting off the ground in a dinky little airplane to getting ready for the first moon landing. Simply extending the historical trend forward, and assuming that the momentum of progress in space exploration didn't change, we probably would have had industrial cities on the moon and at least one Martian colony by 2000.

The problem was that the momentum did not remain. Man did not persist. We did not continue our drive into space. We fell far short of establishing ourselves. In other words, we failed.

Why did we fail? Party politics. Communism's tragedy in the commons. Capitalism's short term profit seeking. Liberals crying for money to feed poor people, then to feed the next and larger generation of more poor people, then to feed the next and even larger generation of still more poor people... Wars that sapped our resources. Affirmative Action that put unqualified people in jobs they could not do well simply to fill a racial quota. Trade agreements that began to impoverish Americans. Having to spend lots of money on controlling non-White crime. And Jews boring holes in the hull of our national ship while crying about how oppressed they were every time they didn't get something they wanted.

Although I can't be sure, if I had to bet I'd put money on "never." Man will NEVER have industrial cities on the moon and a permanent colony on Mars. Not in a hundred years, nor even in a thousand years. Never! Fred Hoyle was right, and Earthly life has struck out at bat. Humans are nearly finished as a technical species. The race that might have gotten the job done, the White race, squandered its opportunity, did not seize the moment, busied itself with sentimental liberal projects instead of what really mattered. And now it's too late.

Why is it too late? Why do I deny the optimism of the next answerer, who gave a rough time table for the colonization of the solar system? The reason is that man is on the verge of running out of fuel to power industrial civilization here on Earth, and we have as yet no self-sufficient colonies elsewhere. Because we didn't make them when we might have done so, we will not be able to continue our space colonization efforts in the years to follow Peak Oil.

Some quotations...

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." — Sir Fred Hoyle, 1964.

"First struggle and then we shall see what can be done. Otherwise mankind has passed the high point of its development and the end is not the domination of any ethical idea but barbarism and consequently chaos. At this point someone or other may laugh, but this planet once moved through space for millions of years without human beings and it can do so again some day if men forget that they owe their higher existence, not to the ideas of a few crazy ideologists, but to the knowledge and ruthless application of Nature's stern and rigid laws." — Adolf Hitler, 1922.

"It is unlikely that anything quite like human beings will come this way again. The resources that have made humans what they are will be gone, and there may not be time before the sun burns out for new deposits of fossil fuel to form and intelligent new scavengers to evolve. The universe seems to have had a unique beginning, some ten or twenty billion years ago. Since that time, a star had to live and die to provide the materials for the solar system—which, itself, is several billion years old. Perhaps life could not have happened any sooner than it did. Perhaps Homo sapiens could not have evolved any sooner. Or later. Perhaps everything has its season, a window of opportunity that opens for a while, then shuts." — David Price, 1995.

"Any number of factors could be cited as the 'causes' of collapse. I believe, however, that the collapse will be strongly correlated with an epidemic of permanent blackouts of high-voltage electric power networks worldwide. Briefly explained: When the electricity goes out, you are back in the Dark Age. And the Stone Age is just around the corner." — Richard Duncan, 2000.

"Since no one can re-create the primeval, lost paradise—no one but the wheel of time itself, after it has rolled its full course—then it is just as well that they, who can completely forget the distant vision, or who never had a glimpse of its dying glow; they, who can stifle in themselves the age old yearning for perfection, or rather, who never experienced it; it is just as well that they, I say, should squeeze out of the fleeing moment (whether minutes or years, it matters little) all the intense, immediate enjoyment they can, until the hour comes when they must die. It is just as well that they should leave their stamp upon the world, force generations to remember them, until the hour comes for the world to die. So they feel." — Savitri Devi, [The Lightning and the Sun].

"Children died, days grew cold. A crust of bread would buy a bag of gold." — Christian hymn.

Answer 5

They had better start soon. We only have about 500 years left on earth before it really begans to get too rough to handle.The natural resources will not last another 100 years at the rate population is growing, and we will be forced to mine the resource sof space,(astroids, metors, moons, planets, and space dust itself).
Unless population , and religion is controled this planet will not withstand another 100 years wihtout pushing us into the dark ages.

Answer 6

We'll do that when another planet has the right temperature, atmosphere, and amount of oxygen for us. Since that's not happening we won't colonize this solar system. Maybe another one but not this one.

Answer 7

you giving up on human life on Earth?? I do not see any planet or moon in our solar system that is ANYTHING NEAR as nice as Earth.
Geez

Answer 8

we might get out of our solar system in about 500 years... that's my guess anyway.