Interstellar Travel

[Deactivated]

I'm very interested in topics relating to Astronomy, and one that has always stood out to me was interstellar travel. Going to other star systems to colonize, or get resources, or even to research is just something that I enjoy reading about.

I want to know, do you see humanity leaving this solar system, either as humans or cyborg beings, and colonizing other worlds? If so, when do you think it will/should be done?

Honestly, I actually can see us expanding in our solar system, and then to other systems. But, it won't be done as purely biological creatures; we'd have to bring resources such as food with us to stay alive, and we'd have to spend a lot of time finding out if the chemical make-up on other planets is something that would live in. I mean, what if we find a planet with oceans and plant life, but the oxygen levels are far less than on Earth, and the life forms there evolved to be used to that? If we wish to expand, we'd have to alter ourselves, possibly merging with machines, or becoming cyborgs altogether.

When it comes to when this is done, I'd have to say within one thousand to ten thousand years. Although I can see us colonizing the Moon, Mars, and maybe even Europa and Titan in the next one hundred to two hundred years, it'd be better to wait longer for interstellar travel depending on how stable we'd be as a society (if we were stable enough to survive in other systems), and what the mission was.

For example, lets say that we wanted to go to a planet similar to Earth, or at least one rich in resources, and colonize. We should wait until it's confirmed that such things are there, and then go. However, we might not even go to other planets in the future. We may just orbit other stars, harnessing their energy, possibly even building our own artificial worlds and stations to live on. Hell, there could even be a mix of both planetary colonies, and ones around stars. I mean, we're talking about a time scale of thousands of years; ANYTHING can happen.

Then again, we may not do this. Humanity may go extinct before we set foot on other worlds, or we could choose to stay in the Solar System, harnessing the energy here. We have plenty of asteroids and moons we could put colonies on, or even take apart to build from. Like I said, anything can happen in a time scale of thousands of years.

That's my thoughts on the topic of interstellar travel. What's yours? :)

[sqishy]

I am thnking of doing a career in astrophysics and if it weren't for my mad mental state at the moment I'd reply thoroughly.
If we do make it to interstellar travel, I think that humanity will evolve to the state that it will become something it has no resemblance to from what it was at the start, by evolution. Humanity will end either by evolution or destruction. I have so many ideas on what could happen, but I honestly have no reliable thoughts on what will. The future is uncertain, as always.
I don't think that interplanetary colonisation will happen in the next 200 years, or even 500. We have so many problems on Earth to sort out first before we should even think about going elsewhere smoothly.

[Twilly F. Sniper]

I think maybe in the next few hundred years, but we won't be able to go any farther than what we know exists now. We will likely hardly go outside our own solar system.

[Human]

I think that once we reach the technological singularity we will be powerful enough as a whole civilization for interstellar travel, maybe we'll even need to be partially robotic to go that far. I think we'll need to release ourselves of more physic restraints like the need to sleep or trivial things like that before we can go too far.

[TheBigUnit]

well if humanity doesnt destroy itself within the next hundred years what i see happening is that there will be a world space program kinda like UN, UN might just take control of this agency, who knows, we wont be going anywhere unless we could find a way to travel faster, it takes about 15-20 years to get to the sun, about 25-35 years to get to europa, so thats our first dilemma if we were to send humans out

[Southside]

I think we should be able to colonize the moon in our lifetime. Mars maybe will be colonized in our grandchildren or great grandchildren's lifetime.

Before any of this happens though, we need to get back to the moon.

[TheBigUnit]

Why should we colonize the moon and Mars? If anything theyll become Labs and testing centers, mars might even be a place where you test futuristic weapons

[Mushin]

I think this depends heavily on our advances over x-amount of years. Suppose we find a way to alter the properties of anti-matter. We could essentially expand space-time behind us, and shrink space-time in front of us. Travelling at light speeds or even faster would be a breeze at that point. But what if we don't make these advances? What if more childish events within the global government systems - such as the government shutdown currently happening in the USA - cause us to halt these advancements?

There are too many variables when it comes to technology, the advancements we will have at any given time, and the way we will be incorporating those advancements. Moore's Law claims that the amount of transistors able to fit on circuits doubles every 18 months, which essentially means our computing power is doubling over that time as well. The law has held true since Moore described it, but it's suspected to end by 2020. This means that by 2020 we will have exhausted the amount of transistors that can fit on a standard circuit, and computing will have to move into an entirely different realm. Say quantum computers, for example.

If Moore's law continues uninterrupted towards that point, and even afterwards, then within 100 years our technologies will be like something straight from a sci-fi movie. My estimate is that by the 22nd century we will have easy access to space travel. Interstellar travel as well, but it may not be as feasible. I'm really excited to see these advancements and how they are implemented in our society. Space travel, and anything involving space for that matter, is awesome.

[Vlerchan]

I've always been an avid SF fan. And, as such, interstellar travel and colonisation has always interested me. My views:

- FTL travel is (most likely) impossible. I simply - from what I've seen; and the very little of that I've managed to understand - don't think we are capable of producing it.
- It won't be some joint global effort that leads the new-space age - regardless of how much I would prefer that - but rather competing private enterprises.
- We'll have asteroid and comet mining inside 50 years. Exploiting Luna's polar caps for it's Helium3 reserves isn't too far off, either. We'll be exploiting the atmospheres of planets such as Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune for Helium3, and such, inside 100 years.
- Building orbital colonies, not terraforming bodies such as Mars and Luna, is the way to go. This will be made possible due to the large amounts of mineral recourses made available from asteroid mining. Terraforming should not be given up on entirely, however.
- Interstellar travel won't be happening for a long, long time. And, even then, it'll most likely be aboard sleeper ships, and the likes. I don't know much about General Relativity, but I know enough to say that 8LY to 61 Cygna-A - a NASA targeted solar system for potential future colonisation - is going to take a long time - relative to our perspective on Earth - regardless of how fast we manage to make our colony ships travel.
- Cryonics is good. I like cryonics.
- Transhumanism is cool, I suppose. I don't hold any opinions on it either way - let people do what they wish with their bodies.
- Eugenics is simply a bad idea. It's cool, but attempting to create some sort of Master Race is never going to end well.
- Singularity is most likely impossible.

Why should we colonize the moon and Mars? If anything theyll become Labs and testing centers, mars might even be a place where you test futuristic weapons
Testing weapons on Mars and Luna is currently illegal under the Outer Space Treaty. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty) I'm not sure if it applies to corporations - though I really, really hope it does - but it definitely covers countries.

[LouBerry]

I mean, it would be amazing. Like, the cool factor breaks the scales. But then again, we've already fucked up our own planet, so I don't really think we should be going to get shit or colonize on any others.

[Camazotz]

I think it's too costly for us to be colonizing the moon/Mars anytime soon. It'd be awesome if we could move past our petty stuff on Earth and expand our knowledge of the universe, but it's sooooo difficult to do, I don't see how it's possible within the next few hundred years.

Realistically, there is no place close enough for us to "settle comfortably." The moon and Mars is close enough to send supplies and food and water, but we would need to live in giant bubbles that had air and temperature control (which obviously would be very very very expensive). Going light years away to an Earth-like planet would require even more amount of money to travel, some sort of homeostasis chamber or Wall-E type vessel, which could not provide the food or shelter to sustain that for very long.

Don't get me wrong, I love humanity, but I don't think we deserve other planets to live on. Let's just leave a positive lasting mark on this one rather than worry about colonizing/imperializing other ones. Also, it's just really expensive.

[Kameraden]

- FTL travel is (most likely) impossible. I simply - from what I've seen; and the very little of that I've managed to understand - don't think we are capable of producing it.


Wrong.

Speed does not apply to space time -- as such, by creating a contraction and expansion in the form of a bubble around a space ship, you could theoretically greatly exceed light speed.

[Vlerchan]

Wrong.

Speed does not apply to space time -- as such, by creating a contraction and expansion in the form of a bubble around a space ship, you could theoretically greatly exceed light speed.
Theoretically; yes, but theoretically lots of things are possible. That doesn't mean we'll actually ever be able to achieve many of them however. By the technological standards that I believe man will be able to attain FTL travel is most certainly impossible. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong - I'd love if I was wrong, really - but disregarding all the highly unlikely hypothetical situations in which we might be able to produce such speeds FTL is impossible - the Alcubierre drive, which you referenced, needs negative matter to work; we don't have, and have found no way of producing, negative matter.

Your idea literally comes straight from Star Trek.

[TheBigUnit]

Wrong.

Speed does not apply to space time -- as such, by creating a contraction and expansion in the form of a bubble around a space ship, you could theoretically greatly exceed light speed.

theoretically yes, most likely? no, but we re that one break through away, i believe if we could make working and stable wormholes our race in general will be galactic, just think of how powerful we would be if traveling to pluto takes the same time it takes you to finish reading my post

[Sir Suomi]

Theoretically, if we could find an extremely powerful source of energy to power our ships, such as Cold Fusion, to allow us to travel near the speed of light, and also master the art of Cryogenic Sleep, meaning we could send normal human beings without the need of basically an infinite amount of resources, we could travel just about anywhere in our universe, gradually over time. Sure, it'd be countless years before the colonists would actually reach anywhere habitable in our universe, but for the crew, it'd feel like no time at all. The only real worry I have about interstellar travel is that we may run into something... Well, smarter, and extremely hostile. I mean, think of our own human history. Whenever a more technologically advanced culture met a more primitive culture, the more primitive culture tended to not have a fun time. Now, I may be wrong on the fact that if we'd run into another intelligent species that it'd turn ugly. Who knows, they could welcome us open arms (Or tentacles, whatever the hell they'd have :P ). Heck, there might not ever be another form of life forms out there! But still, I worry about the fact that any species we encounter may be the conquistadors, and we be the Aztecs.

[darthearth]

I pretty much agree with the OP. If SpaceX achieves their totally reusable system it would make space settlement of the Moon and Mars much more likely for the near term. I think the 100 Year Starship study was a waste of money, didn't think they would come up with anything new and apparently they didn't.

But I also wonder how many of the people who are so interested in actually settling these places will feel the same way after they have been at these places for a long time. I would expect that their interest would eventually wane and they would want to return to Earth.