How far are we from colonizing off Earth?

[Bullgrit]

Realistically, how many years are we away from colonizing:

The Moon

Mars

Any planet outside the Solar System

Bullgrit

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Realistically, how many years are we away from colonizing:

The Moon

We could do it right now. There just isn't enough money or anticipated benefit to science to justify it.

Mars

The moon is "easily" kept supplied from Earth compared to Mars. A Mars colony really sort of needs to be self-contained, self-reliant. This becomes MUCH easier when a reliable source of water can be identified. Assuming that can be found, and again that the money and/or scientific benefit limitations are also overcome, I'd say 20 years (?) from today before plans could be finalized and committed to, then another 20 before it's actually on its feet.

Any planet outside the Solar System

Absolutely indeterminate. Short of purely fictional science and Star Trek levels of global peace and prosperity for the project, interstellar distances are functionally impractical for humanity to bridge with a colonization effort. It's strictly a theoretical possibility. May as well pick a date out of a hat - and then the technology available will likely make current technology seem literally stone-age.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

10 years. Everything that is 'going to happen' sometime in the future is always 'just 10 years away'. Flying cars anyone? (Ok, technically they exist, but when will the average driver be able to get one? In 10 years, of course!)

 

[Joker]

Yeah, until there's some kind of economic benefit or need to colonize I don't see it happening any time soon.

If a Mars probe found a valuable material you could have governments up there in no time.

As an aside. Is buying land on the Moon actually recognized as your property?

 

[hafrogman]

Realistically, how many years are we away from colonizing:

Realistically is the key problem here.

We could do it right now. There just isn't enough money or anticipated benefit to science to justify it.

As the Man pointed out, the trick is motivation.

To get people to colonize, there has to be a resource crunch, to drive people to the lengths required. From a "when WILL we do it" standpoint (as opposed to a "when CAN we do it" view) I'd say any space colonization is very far off, barring special circumstances.

Food and water crunches are the most likely resource competition the future will bring. Neither of these is really helped by the Moon or Mars. You're far more likely to see something like a floating or underwater city with desalination plants and hydroponics labs to address these needs.

A land crunch is unlikely because food and water will limit population first. But if you somehow solve those limits, the population could probably double every 60 years. So maybe 120 years is the point at which overcrowding drives moon colonization over oceanic colonies.

Other resources would need to be something valuable to export. As far as I know, the Moon is pretty much silicate (worthless) all the way down. Mars could presumably have some special mineral deposits, but to overcome shipping costs it'd have to be far more valuable than gold or diamonds. It'd need to be something useful that we have either run out of, or don't have and can't make. Like Unobtanium rare.

The final driving factor is something happening on Earth to reduce what we have. Global climate change, volcanic eruption, meteor strike, nuclear fallout, take your pick. Something to make those that can afford it take flight to live in peace on the Moon. As the Man said, it can be done now. So, whenever you think one of these is likely (tomorrow to 1,000 years).

 

[jonesy]

We have the technology. We could do it tomorrow. The guys are right. All that's missing from the equation is motivation.

Nuclear torch rockets easily get all the mass of all the equipment we'd need into orbit, and to other planets. 99% of the power needed for spacetravel is used up in getting off a gravity well and landing on one. The travel only takes time. Protection against radiation and micrometeorites is easy if you have a big enough mass of materials to build a properly shielded ship. Just stack water containers and hard substances into a layered bunker-like container. Building shelters on Mars is, once again, easy if you bring enough materials along. The hard part is getting plants to grow on Mars greenhouses, and the biggest hurdle is creating a sustainable life cycle.

But you did say colonizing. Now terraforming, that is really really hard. =)

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Back in 1992 or so I heard a talk given by Dr. Hans Mark, former deputy director of NASA. He said if we started immediately at that time we could land a man on Mars in 2017. In other words, 25 years from the time the program is committed just to land a man on Mars-- not actually colonize it. Note that at this point in time, we're retiring the Space Shuttle (1970's technology), and have no replacement for it.

I'm not optimistic. My guess: 30 years, minimum, for the Moon, 60 years, minimum, for Mars.

 

[jonesy]

...My guess: 30 years, minimum, for the Moon...

I don't think we'll ever colonize the Moon. There will never be a reason for it. There's stuff we could mine, like Helium 3 (if it's actually abundant there, and if we can ever actually get fusion to work so we can use it for it), but we don't need to colonize it for that. Robots controlled from orbit, or better yet Earth, are more likely.

Some people say that the Moon is a good stepping stone to the stars. No. It's not. The orbit is a good stepping stone. The only good stepping stone, actually. The best stepping stone would be a refuelling station in orbit of Jupiter, or something along those lines. If we could ever build a well enough shielded station which could withstand Jovian radiation, where shielded means massive enough.

 

[Umbran]

We have the technology. We could do it tomorrow.

That is not exactly true. We can design and build appropriate rockets, but are not in possession of them this instant. Tomorrow, or next year, would not be an option, as designing and building "heavy-lift" capacity is not like designing and building a new car. The (now canceled) Constellation program was intending to use current known principles (chemical rockets), but largely new designs. They planned to start tech development in 2005, with first manned flight in 2014. First flight to the Moon was set for 2019. So, we're talking 9 to 14 years using largely known technologies. Call it a round decade.

Now, with a whole lot of money, and a less conservative idea of what counts as "acceptable risk", you can do this sort of thing in less than nine years - but doing that you may also end up with dead astronauts and wasting a lot of money on an abject failure.

Nuclear torch rockets easily get all the mass of all the equipment we'd need into orbit, and to other planets.

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.

Protection against radiation and micrometeorites is easy if you have a big enough mass of materials to build a properly shielded ship.

Well, to go to the Moon, you don't need a whole lot of shielding.

To go to Mars, you need that shielding. But, while simple in concept, it is expensive in practice. Unless you first build a Moon station that can produce it, every single ounce of your shielding has to come from the surface of the Earth. That is expensive.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think we'll ever colonize the Moon. There will never be a reason for it.

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.