Brak wants to know, "Will people live on Space stations in 90 years"?

Question

Kinda like I did on Cartoon Planet?

That sure would rock to live on one and see planets and moons from your window.

Answer 1

I highly doubt it. I do not mean to be negative but if you look at where they thought we would be 50 or 60 years ago, it is similiar to this idea and we are still not there. I do think there will be more technology though.

Answer 2

Dan- you don't have to worry about looking foolish in the future- you're doing a good job of that today by saying China is going to use up the world in 20 years. I hope I don't have to quelch another Adolphis rumor from someone now because of your statement.

I assume by 'people' that you mean you and I. NASA will have the moonbases built around 2020. Then they will plan some Mars missions. by the time Mars is explored it will be 2040. I suppose there would be 60 years left to build a space station for you but what would be the point? What would you do there? You can't just say 'hey, I'm going up to the space station to hang out and look at planets and moons for a while'. Unless you were a millionaire you would have to work. A lot of people have some fantasy that we are going to just send 7 billion people off into space and that will end all of our worries. Real life is not like that. Get used to the fact that Earth is not just our home, but our only home. It's not going to do any good dreaming about going off to look at planets any more than it is going to help by telling people that our world resources will be gone in 20 years and then we will be destroyed by an asteroid.

Answer 3

I would feel pretty foolish if we didn't.

We are running out of resources and recycling can only go far. China is gobbling up resources like crazy and at their current rate in 20 years they could use up the entire planet. The only place where new land will be found is in space. We can mine asteroids to get new metal and organic compounds can be mined from comets.

The asteroid Apothos is due to pass very close to the earth in 2027. There is a one in 45,000 chance it could swing around and hit us in the year 2037. But, wouldn't it be cool if we could change the orbit a bit and put it into an orbit around the earth! Talk about a super space station.

Answer 4

I think we'll have terraformed our own planet to maximum live ability and arability, and possibly others, but I doubt that long-term life will be spent on a completely man made structure.
You have all of Siberia's land mass at at the same latitude as america from Florida to Maine. All of the Sahara will be irrigated with the glacial melts from the movement. 20-50 degrees north or south, with bridges, reservoirs, and canals throughout. Islands in crazy shapes, vast farmlands far as the eye can see, and the near endless coastline still built up to 30+ stories everywhere possible. We may get rid of mountains to use them to stack over the great pacific rift zone, in order to have a barrier to the winds that would come from having a large area of the world landless. It would be an engineering feat, but man will it be something.

Answer 5

Well, there are a lot of problems with living in space.

First of all, the food (and other supplies). Right now, it costs about $7000-$15000 dollars to put ONE POUND of stuff into orbit. That includes the seeds we would bring to space to grow stuff in orbit (if we ever learn how).

Second, health issues. Because the human body was tailored for life on Earth, it has also grown used to the Earth's gravity in the millions of years we've been here. In zero gravity, blood doesn't pump correctly, your muscles aren't being used, and your brain is having a heck of a time trying to balance itself. Astronauts have to exercise A LOT in space to keep their bodies functioning properly. If children were born in space, their bones would be so brittle that going back to Earth would kill them instantly.

There's a lot more problems, such as technology, radiation, air, transport, etc. Life in space just wouldn't be practical.

Answer 6

Almost certainly.

There's a lot of reasons why we should start really moiving into space--but thereis one reason that guarantees we WILL do so: money.

There are tremendous commercial and industrial potentials in space manufacturing--pharmaceuticals, bioengineering, materials technology products, eletronics--zero--gravity manufacturing will revolutionize all those fields and more (people will spend most of their time on rotating stations that provide artificial gravity, of course).

We are on the verge--by the end of the next decade--of having spacecraft cost-effective enough to make it possible (read: profitable) to get this started.

And--idealism and adventure aside, if you can count on the profit motive to push it, we WILL have space travel and people living in space very soon thereafter.

Answer 7

I'm sure people will be living on Space Stations due to the growing technology and the Tree huggers will have escape Earth due to their so called "Global Warming" and colonize a space station to live on.