Outer space. Anyone?

Question

in 50 or 100 years, d'ya think there'll be human relocations to other planets? what are the challenges?

Answer 1

In 50 years I'd hope to see a permanent, self-sustaining colony on the moon. In 100 years, maybe on Mars. The problems are huge, though. Growing food in that environment would be a huge problem. Mining resources like water, metals, etc would be tough, too.

Moon dust, for example, is made up of tiny, sharp grains that eat seals and bearings up. They aren't eroded like the dust here on earth, so they're not rounded and smooth. Did you ever play the game "Jacks" when you were a kid? Imagine throwing jacks into the machinery instead of marbles, and you'll see what I mean.

Another problem is the distance. Mars and Earth can be roughly over 200 million miles apart. The moon, by comparison, is about 235,000 miles away, roughly 1/1000 of the distance. In either case, a mission has to carry everything it needs to survive. Food, water, air, medical supplies, spare parts, instructions, computers, filters, fuel... the list is endless.

But we may make it even further. Some of the moons of Jupiter, for example, may be better candidates for human settlement than Mars. They have atmospheres, and temperatures closer to what we're used to living under. The asteroid belt has some asteroids that are large enough to have a tiny bit of gravity. Drilling into one could make sense - maybe you could set up an underground city inside an asteroid.

Still, in 100 years, I think it's more likely that we'd have permanent cities orbiting the earth, or at the LaGrange points. These are points located near two bodies that orbit each other where the gravity of each other cancels each other's effects, and materials tend to stay at that spot. There are 5 in the earth-moon system - one in the moon's orbit but leading it, one in the moon's orbit but trailing it, one between the moon and earth, one on the far side of the moon, and one behind the earth. Others exist in the sun-earth system, too. They would make logical locations to put a space station for research, for docking ships heading out into the solar system, and maybe for living there permanently.

Answer 2

It is very far to our nearest star, so we will not be able to travel to it in that time frame. Of the planets in our solar system, mars is the only one that we could easily build a base on. Even if we build a base on mars, people would be confined indoors and that would not be a very pleasant life, compared to earth.
Someday though, we may be able to give mars a new atmosphere and we may be able to travel to other stars, but that is probably way into the future.

Answer 3

Other than our own solar system? No because when we look at distant stars and possible planets revolving around them, we are looking back in time because it takes time for the light to travel from such far distances. So if we wanted to go that far it would probably take close to a lifetime to get there and that is if you go at the speed of light.

Answer 4

Probably, it's in our f*%@#:$ up nature. We must destroy more worlds seeing as ours is almost done. Challenges for our brilliant leaders would be; How soon can we destroy it? Who should we fight when we get there? And where do we put the McDonald's?

Answer 5

Titan, the moon of Saturn.
Problems- lakes of natural gas, basically adapting to temperature, atmosphere, gravity.

Answer 6

The chalenge is to go there and meet with them and to be able to get along together. And to be able to share intelligence and knowledge together. They are there and we are here and we need to be able to meet together. But it will take time. A long long time and we need to be ready.

Answer 7

There is a trip planned to go to Mars, Now.
Problems, no air, no food and no water!

Answer 8

sure we can go to the near stars now. Its just a metter of will

Answer 9

No. too much radiation. We are stuck here.