What future -- if any -- do you foresee for humanity among the stars?

Answer 1

Humans are living longer and longer, fighting for breathing room on this little ball of rock. We are poisoning ourselves with various chemicals that are leeching into the food chain. Various species are becoming extinct annually.

I think that our only hope is to be able to expand and use all of our developing technologies (solar power, recycling, clean fuels, etc) to either correct the imbalances on this planet, or have the foresight to start over on a new one that is suitable for human life, or that can be terraformed.

Of course, this will only happen after we get our act together here and stop relying on non-renewable energy, controlling population growth, and avoid polluting our environment.

I believe that there is a huge opportunity for industry in space that will become reality in the next century. That includes the extraction and retrival of minerals and metals from other planets or asteroids, solar energy convertors and storage facilities, even such business as space tourism. Imagine the Carnival Cruise Lines "Saturn tour", or to the Sea of Tranquility Spa and Resort.

But it starts with people ditching their Hummer's and promoting or investing in companies that have vision and who are bringing out these great products today. Items that do not pollute, that use less packaging, that are more efficient and use less energy, etc.

Answer 2

As I see it, Humanity has no choice but to expand into the cosmos. Long before the Sun or the Earth come to an end, we will have exhausted our resources. Continuing population problems will never end, and mother nature will continue to create new plagues and diseases to thin us out.

The nay-sayers will certainly point out that we will never reach another solar system in a single human life time because of the tremendous distances involved. This of course is just history repeating itself. A few hundred years ago, we knew that the Earth was flat, and anyone who said otherwise was a lunatic. Today, we know that we are alone in the universe. In a few hundred more years, I wonder how many things we "know" will be proven wrong, and what new things we believe we know?

Going to the Moon was a tremedous acheivement, and we pushed our knowledge and technology to the limits to succeed. We then reaped the benefits of that knowledge and technology. If we go to Mars, we will once again see humanity rise to the challenge, and witness the evolution of new technologies and push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe. Wether the journey is to discover new lands accross the sea, or to explore a whole new planet, it is the challenges that push us to be more than we are.

Answer 3

That it won't be long before they're all floating out there too?

;-)

I think the stars and the universe hold the secrets of existence but whether mankind will ever find a place in them I do not know.

I'm sure there will be space travel some time soon afforded by only the very elite of elite, possibly to the moon. I can't see people wanting to be inconvenienced for the long haul to Mars, unless someone invents a space "Concorde!"

TheScience Center is amazing, (congrats on your many accomplishments) and the ROM Planetarium back in the 70s (for me) was probably the most memorable place I have ever been to as a child. What a pity for future generations that they did away with it. It was so fascinating and the wonder and awe it inspired I have never forgotten.

If I were one to believe in conspiracy theories I would think that secret societies etc. have already built a place they can all escape to "somewhere out there" that could sustain life should catastrophe strike earth where they could exist quite comfortably for quite a long time. If they haven't yet, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they will. You can bet they have underground bunkers ready to roll so why not outer space ones?

Who would want to exist in outer space however. Not I. Some things are better left to die in extinction than to transform into science fiction and exist artificially.

Could there be life out there? Possibly. But what if there's not? That idea blows my mind more so than the latter.

PS: I believe many viruses and bacteria have been brought to earth by fallen meteors. Did they ever determine the cause in Peru? Many unheard of strains that simply never existed before. Could it be that some, at least, arrive from outer space? Sadly that's likely the only life forms we'll ever come to know that exist among the stars!

Answer 4

In order to reach our natural destiny, we need to clean our home now. We need to get rid of all those neocons than only want power over the rest of us for their only elitist lives.

It is not that we have a choice, we need to get off this planet in order for the race to survive. This solar system and even this galaxy has a limited life. Or we could send capsules containing human DNA in all directions.

The science may or may not exist yet but the physics would certainly tell us that it is possible. Or we might just need to have the chance to hitchhike with some other lifeforms that might actually pass this way.

In any case, if we stay here, that will be the end of this civilization and all of its history.

We are at a cross-road where we need to decide if humanity wants to survive and grow in the universe (a la Asimov) or do we let those elitists parasites destroy us.

The choice is quite simple really: live or die. I choose Life. To make it so (a la Jean-Luc Picard) humanity has to put its resources and minds together. The monetary system has to go for the survival of humanity.

The idea is there but the decision is ours.

Answer 5

With proper allowances for spending, the possibilities are endless. It is gravely naive to think we are the only intelligent life forms in this vast universe. Although it may be many decades from now, the future is in space technology and travel. What we can do now to help this come to fruition? Do our best to keep our planet healthy so we can survive as a race and be around to see the great things that exist beyond our currently known world. Ever seen futurama? Well, it might not come out exactly that way but there is great potential to have contact and harmonious dealings with other intelligent life-forms in the future. I have a hard time believing that there hasn't already been contact of some form, on our end or "theirs"...

Answer 6

I can't say that I see a future for humans among the stars. Besides realistically rockets are not efficient enough to bring us anywhere because the amount of fuel they burn in order to get the thrust we need to reach further out to space, and the more thrust needed, the more fuel needed which means more weight and smaller storage for experiments and even the astronauts. We need to develop some kind of propulsion system that either recycles its energy for unlimited power, or a way that uses a small amount of alternative fuels. In which case it would still take a very long time in order to travel further into and even out of the solar system, surely we couldn't supply enough food or supplies for a trip like that. So we need to develop something that allows us to move way faster, like travelling at the speed of light, which has it's own problems in itself about how can we reach those speeds, and how does it affect us human beings at those speeds.

Also there is a theory, and that when something is accelerating to the speed of light it will increase in mass until the speed of light is reached, so to travel at that speed we would need to instantly go from 0 to the speed of light . Plus in physics I read that 1 second at the speed of light is around 1.1 seconds normal time, so if you multiply that by months or years, well the difference becomes very noticeable.

So overall, without a lot of money, and a lot of research, our future among the stars is looking dim,so probably not in the near future, but it still hasn't been proved to be impossible.

Answer 7

Yes, I foresee a future for humanity among the stars except if we do something foolish and destroy ourselves. If we can work out solutions to our conflicts, then I see a future in space. It is a natural attribute for humans to explore. Our knowledge and technology is expanding. How this vision will unfold? Will it be a wild west type setting? With China expanding her space program, the USA will give NASA a big boost.










c

Answer 8

We belong to the stars and this is where the future of the human race will be.

In my opinion, there are two major things that make the space exploration a way too slow:

1. political instability and military budgets that cut the national space research programs in all countries of the "space club", example: US military budget for the year 2008 is $481 billion DoD +$554 billion WoT, totally a trillion (!!), the NASA budget is just $17 billion - it is nothing comparing to the war money!

2. absence of real cooperation between countries and corporations in this area, sharing the technologies, the wheel is being invented over and over again...


So, not enough money for space, and it is spent so unwisely... This world has to really change for people to get to the stars!

Answer 9

We, as humans beings, as creatures of this planet have no right to look elsewhere in the universe for alternative living when our planet is suffering. We waste billions of dollars a year on "space exploration" and research when we fail to respect our own planet and the millions of people living in poverty that inhabit it. Finding suitable living spaces among the stars is a complete and utter neglect of the responsibilities we have to our own home...the earth. No one can justify space programs. What do we hope to get out of it? Medicines from other planets to prolong life here on earth...think about how that would affect societies and not to mention the natural balance. If you believe in God or a god, how would you justify to them that we KNOWINGLY destroyed or neglected our own planet so that we can prove to ourselves we are smart enough to land a man on the moon...think about it. Science always argues that we should push the limits of our imaginations, well why not use that creativity to solve some of the more pressing problems. This unfortunatly will never happen due to mans innate dissability to ignore the suffering and focus on useless endevours such as space programs. Not all people agree with space industries so I will not generalize, but know that many people fall into the category of ignorance. Lets get back to respecting and connencting to the beauty here on earth rather than looking to the stars to satisfy our ever dangerous desire to be entertained if not amused.

Answer 10

There are too many difficulties to solve before humanity could even think of exploring any star system. I think the closest we may come to this is probably Mars or the Moon. If we could come up with a way to breathe, eat, and live over a 1, 000 years, invent a spaceship that could keep us alive while we travel through the void, then maybe there is a chance. But so far, our bodies are not adapted to anything but life on earth. Not to mention what cosmic rays might do to our bodies. Our best tool for space exploration is robotics. to explore our solar system and we need a lot more information as to what is in space before we step out of a spaceship on the surface of Mars.