How far are we from colonizing off Earth?

[jonesy]

Unless you want to spray a whole lot of fallout on living people, there is no known nuclear option that you can use to get into orbit.

Fair point. Unless you found a place on Earth where that wasn't an issue.

Or, you could use a Verne Gun:
The Verne Gun — KarlSchroeder.com

That is expensive.

Yes. Which goes straight into the idea of needing motivation. If we had it, the cost wouldn't matter. Since we don't, the cost is everything.

See what I said above about shielding. If you are trying to get heavy masses to the rest of the solar system, it takes a whole lot less oomph to get it there from the Moon than the Earth's surface. At that point you're talking about production facilities on the Moon. They can be heavily automated, but you'd still need people present to deal with breakdowns.

I get what you're saying, but I think moondust alone is reason enough to keep the production line in orbit.

 

[surfarcher]

I think we are close. Real close.

Just a few short millenia left... Just a few heartbeats in cosmic terms.

LMAO!

 

[Banshee16]

Realistically, how many years are we away from colonizing:

The Moon

Mars

Any planet outside the Solar System

Bullgrit

According to a special on National Geographic a few weeks back, Mars at least will be a while.

Now, it depends on what you mean by colonizing. If you mean landing people there, then probably within 5-10 years. But if you're talking about longterm habitation, quite a bit longer. Unless they've got huge buildings with greenhouses and ways of growing food and replenishing water, it could be centuries. Terraforming could take 800 years.

I'm not sure that I count having a land-based capsule or research lab where scientists live for 6 months, then come back to earth as "colonizing".

As to getting beyond the solar system, I don't think it's realistic. I think if they ever get to the point that they get behind public unwillingness to have nuclear power being used in space, it's unlikely to ever happen. Though I do remember something about Canadian scientists creating an ion drive or something like that....which would multiple space travel times by a factor of 10x or something like that. Taking 6 weeks to get to Mars, instead of 6 months would make it a lot more feasible.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Unless you want to spray a whole lot of fallout on living people, there is no known nuclear option that you can use to get into orbit. Nuclear options are good for use outside the atmosphere, not within it, and are better for low-thrust (long distance) travel, rather than boosting off a planetary surface.

So, you use more conventional rockets to get from Earth to an orbital "bus stop" and then use a nuclear powered craft that leaves earth, and heads for other planets.

Realistically, I think we'd need major, major scientific advances before we could ever get out of our solar system. With the nearest solar system being....what.....60 million light years away, and no craft or technology capable of getting anywhere near light speed, it could take centuries or millenia to reach the next star.

Call me a cynic, but I don't think we have that long. I figure we'll wipe ourselves out within a few centuries anyways.

Of course, what do I know....my background is psychology, not astrophysics or engineering

Banshee

 

[Umbran]

So, you use more conventional rockets to get from Earth to an orbital "bus stop" and then use a nuclear powered craft that leaves earth, and heads for other planets.

Yep. Probably ion engines run off a small nuclear power plant.

With the nearest solar system being....what.....60 million light years away...

Um, no. The entire galaxy is only 100,000 light years in diameter. The nearest star is 4.37 light years (about 26 trillion miles) away

...and no craft or technology capable of getting anywhere near light speed, it could take centuries or millenia to reach the next star.

If we can get a craft up to 10% of lightspeed, it'd take about 60 or 70 years to reach the nearest star. The nearest known planet outside the solar system is somewhat more distant (about 10 light years away).

 

[jonesy]

With the nearest solar system being....what.....60 million light years away, and no craft or technology capable of getting anywhere near light speed, it could take centuries or millenia to reach the next star.

60 million lightyears? There must be a unit conversion error there somewhere. I'm just having trouble deciding which one it might be.

But with the distances involved it hardly matters.

The closest star is Proxima Centauri at 4.2 lightyears. That's about 40 trillion kilometers.

The closest detected exoplanet (planet orbiting a star other than Sol) orbits Epsilon Eridani, which is 10.5 lightyears away (63 trillion miles). Most of the others (that we've detected) are within 300 lightyears of us.

What's 60 million lightyears away? the spiral galaxy called Messier 90.

The fastest theoretically viable stardrive at the moment seems to be nuclear pulse propulsion (correct me if you find something faster, please). The Project Orion. It would get you to Proxima Centauri in 85 years. If you used the Ion drive we now have working, 8000 years. Yeah.

Edit: sorry, now I made an error: the ion drive would get you to Proxima Centauri in 80000 years.

 

[Orius]

Probably about 100 years or so to colonize within the solar system.

Outside, it depends on what if any kinds of FTL or near-FTL flight we can develop. FTL is currently beyond our technology if even possible.

The biggest hurdles though aren't technological but political, unfortunately. There are always those who think space is just a waste of time and are content to just sit around on the Earth and worry about poverty and the environment until the Sun gets big enough to burn the oceans and atmosphere away. No amount of money or green thinking will save the biosphere when that happens.

 

[RangerWickett]

I figure within 50 years we'll have telescopes precise enough to have located a habitable planet somewhere. Some cadre of super-rich folks will decide to invest billions of dollars to launch a ship there, but it won't have a living person. It will have a very advanced artificial intelligence, and a variety of ultralight robots capable of exploring once it lands.

20 years later they'll actually get around to launching the thing.

A hundred years after that, the ship might be a tenth of the way to its destination when some stupid mistake here on earth completely obliterates the ability to keep in contact with it.

Somewhere close to the 31st century, radio signals will reach earth from this planet. People will flip the f*** out, because everyone will have forgotten about the ship, so they'll assume it's an alien intelligence.

 

[Dire Bare]

There are always those who think space is just a waste of time and are content to just sit around on the Earth and worry about poverty and the environment until the Sun gets big enough to burn the oceans and atmosphere away. No amount of money or green thinking will save the biosphere when that happens.

Ah, the sun expanding and destroying the Earth's capacity to support life is a loooooooonnnngggg time away . . . we're not even talking geologic timescales, but cosmologic!

Even if we rolled back our impending climate changes to pre-industrial levels tomorrow, the human race will likely no longer exist before we have to start worrying about the sun expanding . . .

And at the rate our activities are changing our climate, it's a much more immediate and realistic concern.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I do not see it in the next 100 years - yes we could do it and yes there is enough reasons to do it (the moon with H3) but we just lack the vision and drive. There is no "race" for what is there and limited resources being applied for better means to get there.

Add to that the growing issues of population and climate change, our focus will be earth bound for a very long time.