What do you think? Do you think that it will be possible for humanity to become an interstellar civilization? Like seen on Star Trek or Star Wars? I would like to know what do you think about the idea of that happening in the next 100 or 10000 years? I mean, 600 years ago there were no Europeans in the new world. Now, there are over 1 billion of us living on this continent. Do you think that will happen with the solar system and maybe even the galaxy?
Yes.
We will.
We will neither die with a bang, nor wither.
Tomorrow still is wide open.
Only if we come up with an FTL drive. We’ll never get enough people together to build and equip generation ships to crawl to even the closest star.
Agreed - essentially only if the laws of physics change to permit a practical FTL drive (please don’t anyone correct me to the effect that it’s possible right now if you build a rotating cylinder three times the size of the Solar System, etc - I said practical.)
Or if the human race changes (machine upload of our minds coupled with robotic bodies better in every way than our current meaty ones)
By the time we develop a space-faring civilization, our species will have evolved so much that we won’t be able to rightly call ourselves human beings anymore.
Probably not.
Why?
[ol]
[li]There are enough resources within our own solar system to last humanity forever - From planets with atmospheres of methane, to moon whose surface are covered with water to asteroids the size of continents made of nickel and iron, there’s a cornucopia of building material in our own solar system. There may never be a need to leave our system.[/li][li]Civilization may collapse before FTL or generation ships are ever invented or created - Between climate change and synthetic biology, mankind might discover a method to make himself extinct before we ever get the chance to leave this solar system.[/li][li]FTL may not work effectively- If there were multiple FTL system failures (or simply disappearances of ships) then it’s difficult to see how a program would ever keep going. People might simply be satisfied with travel within our own solar system rather than risking travel to another one.[/li][/ol]
While I’ll almost certainly long dead before humanity attempts to leave the solar system in manned space vessels, I personally don’t believe that it will ever occur.
I don’t think we ever will…but, even if we did, I think you’re right. It will be some post-human civilization that would be as alien to us as we, today, would be to Lucy the Australopithecus.
No, we won’t.
The sentient machines that we build, maybe.
This is the most likely scenario.
Agreed.
It would not surprise me if we did.
Biosphere and Voyager are two data points that seem valid. We’re already capable of building small self-contained habitats and we’re already capable of throwing objects out of the solar.
An interstellar colony ship is clearly orders of magnitude more than what we’ve already accomplished. The engines seem like the weakest link in know-how but, again, we’ve already put objects on escape trajectories from the solar system.
However, I think we need to temper that optimism with the economic reality. There’s no real reason to go to other stars, at least not anytime in the next billion years. Anything that could be used to go to other stars could be used much more cost-effectively within our own solar system. But mankind has done a lot of really inefficient things in the name of “because we can” and I think travel to other stars has that same cachet.
I don’t think WE will any more than cro-magnon walked on the moon.
Our distant relatives from now? Maybe.
Why not? I see no reason why that might not happen someday. Plus, I imagine generational ships might be made that aren’t even necessarily going to any particular star, but are simply permanent settlements themselves.
I think so. By the time we develop an engine that can nearly approach c we may have also figured out how to significantly slow ageing. We can then possibly make it to the closest habitable planets.
I’m simply looking towards a manned mission to Mars for the time being.
Not a chance. All the money being spent now on space travel research and equipment is a waste of money. We might send somebody out but the results will be tragic.
Neither will happen.
Highly doubtful.
I doubt it. It’s technologically feasible but it’s not economically feasible. You’re basically talking about spending billions or trillions on a generation ship that will never be seen again, and probably not heard from either. No economic or scientific benefit will redound to the people left behind on Earth. The money would be better spent on practically anything else.
You’d have to hop from suitable planet to suitable planet to mine ore to and then build refineries, forges and manufacturing facilities to produce replacement parts for your ship and replenish the inevitable loss of oxygen (nothing lasts forever).
At that point you might as well colonize.
All of this is academic because we’ll never build ships capable of even that. Entropy is a bitch, or “rust never sleeps”, take your pick.
Shaddddapp