When will we?

Interested to hear everybody's thoughts on this...

When will we finally set human feet on Mars? How long do you think it will be?

I'm personally putting my money on the 2030's... no particular reason, just sounds like enough time for us to get it done. And I'm still proposing the idea that the first time we set foot on Mars, we will discover existing microbial life. I proposed this idea about a year ago on ATS, and now I've actually seen some TV Science pundits who are pimping the idea that life is everywhere in the universe - abundant in ways we can't imagine.

When do you think humans will be able to travel to the stars? And how?

This one I would be tempted to say "never" since we're likely to destroy ourselves (or be destroyed by nature) before we ever get around to it. However, I like to think of myself as an optimist, so I'll say we're travelling to the stars by the year 2200, and we'll be doing it by traditional spaceflight means, as versus stargates or wormholes etc...

We make our return to the Moon in 2018. 2030 would give us 12 years of Moon based R&D to work out the kinks. I would have to say 2030 or 2035 for a manned mission to Mars depending on a number of variables such as funding and shifting political power.

As for "Beyond the stars" exploration. I don't see this happening for a long, long time. We just don't have the capabilites to go there.

Keep in mind though, we do have some probes hurtling through the void right now that have left our solar system.

Assuming our economy survives, around 2030 sounds right for Mars.

During the Apollo missions, NASA was predicting we would step foot on Mars around 1985. A lot of things happened, though, that changed those plans. Vietnam and a shaky economy robbed the space program of a lot of funding. Also, the “political” goal of sending a man to the moon had been accomplished, and so the drive to explore space quickly vanished.

I think if we survive as a species (a big “if”), then we will eventually get to the stars. It’s hard to say when and by what means at this point. It could happen soon, or it may be a long way off. There are a lot of scenarios/factors to consider. A few of them are:

1) A political reason, like competition with China, Europe, Russia, etc. would be a big push.
2) Economic status. Can we afford to go? Or will we have things like stupid wars, or other foolhardy ventures, eating up our budget?
3) How soon will commercial ventures start outperforming and overshadowing NASA? If we have NASA funding and never ending wars to count on, then it may be quite some time before we ever get there.
4) Might there become an overwhelming need to step up our technology in a hurry? Say we discover something of cosmic origin that threatens the entire solar system, but it will be 100 years or so before it is to arrive? I can imagine technology advancing rather quickly in that case.

There are lots of things that may dictate the speed of progress we make toward the capability of interstellar space travel. I can’t believe that it’s impossible. It’s just a matter of time. I think by 2200 we will have the capability. If not, then it’s because we entered another Dark Ages, or something like that.

It's all about transfer orbits given our current state of tech and then funding. I haven't checked recently but there were some dates coming up in 2030 time frame to make the orbits potentially doable with todays tech....

I think it is plausible that we already have. Our ancients, who are also our descendants. May sound complicated. But if you think i'm full of doo doo, i'm not offended. I think it may be plausible that our descendants colonized Mars eons ago. Just a thought.

Originally posted by netbound
Assuming our economy survives, around 2030 sounds right for Mars.

There are a lot of scenarios/factors to consider. A few of them are:

1) A political reason, like competition with China, Europe, Russia, etc. would be a big push.
2) Economic status. Can we afford to go? Or will we have things like stupid wars, or other foolhardy ventures, eating up our budget?
3) How soon will commercial ventures start outperforming and overshadowing NASA? If we have NASA funding and never ending wars to count on, then it may be quite some time before we ever get there.
4) Might there become an overwhelming need to step up our technology in a hurry? Say we discover something of cosmic origin that threatens the entire solar system, but it will be 100 years or so before it is to arrive? I can imagine technology advancing rather quickly in that case.

I agree with all of that. I think we're already getting a political reason with China's space program taking off, economics will be a moot point though I think in the future because even with the bad economy right now, private space enterprise is flourishing.

Imagine what hapens if middle-eastern countries start duplicating the technology of, say, SpaceShipOne and launching their own satellites and intelligence agents. Hell, the Prince of Dubai could launch an entire fleet if he wanted to. Or if large corporations start launching fleets of vehicles into space....

The only way anybody could police the actions of the privateers would be to have a regular presence in space ourselves. Governments are going to be forced to keep pace.

For all of those reasons, I think we're at the beginning of a space push which is going to dwarf the original "race". This time it's governments AND private citizens. It's heavy lift AND personal transport. It's science AND recreation.

it will hapen if we dont kill our selves, but b4 we go out we must solve problems here on earth