Space: The Final Frontier

Noblesse Oblige

Noblesse Oblige

The Dawn of a New Chronicle
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The 21st century saw a glimpse of the future in the form of robots, computers and the expansion of the internet through the use of facebook and myspace.

But it has also seen new technologies and discovceries in space, already in the past 10 years, we have discovered the closest-earth like world (in turns of athmospheric pressure) Titan, we have discovered water on the moon and Mars and Discovered several new Dwarf Planets (at the cost of demoting Pluto)

The Next 10 years and beyond will prove more of the same, yet more of something new. I want to ask, do you think that we may start becoming a spacefaring race in the 21st century?

Here's a set of missions to Mars for example:
2011-2019: MetNet (Finland)
2012: Phobos-Grunt & Yinghuo-1 (Russia & China)
2012: MSL Curiosity (United States)
2012: Northern Light (Canada)
2013: MAVEN (United States)
2013-2015: India's Mars Mission (India)
2016: Mars Trace Gas Orbiter (Europe)
~2016: Astrobiology Field Lab (United States)
2016-2018: ExoMars (United States & Europe)
~2018: Mars Sample Return Mission
~2030s-2040s: Mars Manned Mission (Unknown)

Following that time scale, we may expect to see a Martian colony by the Mid to Late 21st century :D
 
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I've always had a fascination for space, cosmology and astrophysics in general, so I definitely look forward to seeing what comes of these studies of space.

Even though technology has come a long way, I don't think humans will be able to live on another body of space in the 21st century. I mean, there are just too many extreme factors that relate to space travel. Things like oxygen supply and the fact that the temperature is only 3 Kelvin in space. The temperature factor alone is a huge deal, considering the human body can't even handle the extreme temperatures on this planet very well, let alone another mass in space that will either be drastically hotter or colder (it's like 900 degrees on Mercury for christ sake!).

We would also have to consider what kind of air a world like Titan would have. If it's not oxygen, then it wouldn't matter how similar atmospheric pressure is.

Even though I throwing out a lot of reasons why it couldn't happen, I have never actually studied such matters, so my thoughts could be way off. But if we could actually discover more about other worlds and possibly other world lifeforms, then I would love to see that happen before I die.
 
Well, when you think about it, the story with oxygen supply is being dealt with, after all, that is why humans are able to last a long while on the International Space Station, which had been in space for almost a decade if not more.

Temperature is indeed a factor, but we are developing technologies to deal with that issue, I've seen that on a documentary before but I cannot recall what it was exactly.

Also, there is no other planet in the universe thus far that breathes the air we breathe hear on Earth, which brings up the prospect of terraforming, be it partial or plantwide. But that is for another century.
 
Interesting....Kinda reminds me a bit of Halo. I for one, however, dont see colonisation until mabye late 21st or early 22nd century. Just doesnt sound feasible in buiding a permanent base there. Do note that a team of scientists staying there fro a few months does not mean colonisation. Colonisation mean where people stay there fore extended period of time to live. I think people in the ISS has a limit of time they can be in it, so unless an environment can be created and replicate earth, i dont really see it.

Besides the fact that oxygen supply has to be shipped before a viable oxygen system is created for the colonies also mean frequent trips between Earth and mars, which is costly.
 
well you have a point, especially considering the fact that it will be difficult to get supplies from Earth to Mars due to the 2 month travel time, plus there is a certain period where Earth is closest to Mars, which only happens once every 24-30 months.

Therefore, you are right on oxygen, they would need to refine oxygen from another source, in the case of Mars, with it's athomsphere albeit thin, is mostly CO2, would require a synthesis source to create Oxygen.
 
for mars there is another problem, martian dust. the stuff will get into the average space suit easily and can jam up electronics. it's some fine dirt. don't forget the massive dust storms that sweep the surface periodically.
 
I really am interested in space, the concept of the colonisation of other planets / moons and the expansion of the human race, and of animals, across the universe (or more realistically, the galaxy, or even more realistically just the solar system, or even MORE realistically just Mars :brooding:).

I'd love to live to see colonisation happen, but sadly it angers me that I will not. Terraforming will take a long time to process on Mars, if it is possible at this stage anyway, and since such hasn't been started yet it is unlikely I will ever see the day they even begin it, let alone settle humans and animals in Martian forests.

The most we'll probably see in our lifetimes, if we're lucky, is a manned expedition to Mars. I'd settle for that I guess. If I saw that happen before I die I'd at least die reassured that the human race might finally be starting to spread out.

I would love to live to see them growing plants in heated domes across Mars, pumping oxygen from these domes into the atmosphere of the planet. I haven't looked into it much though, but I assume there is a lot more to terraforming that just that. I'd love to see the start of the process of terraforming Mars, but I doubt I ever will.

Still... I like to dream of the day where mankind spreads to places like Mars, spawning new cultures and making everything so much more interesting than it already is.
 
I agree with you sadly, we do have the current technology to actually terraform Mars, however we probably wont get to that in our current lifetimes and maybe not in our children's lifetimes either. But to say that we will see the first man/woman on Mars by the end of the 21st cntury will be a definitive fact.
 
My bad, Kev! You did say in the SB yesterday you were going to make a space thread and I forgot you did.

Space has always been a source of wonder to me as well. I tend to just gaze at the night sky and imagine the stars and the planets beyond. I really do want to see what it may be like to see humanity spread to the stars, probably because I've seen too many sci-fi stuff.

Why can't we as mankind spread around the cosmos a bit more? A century ago, humans developed technology to be able to fly long distances. Now we have technology able to go to the Moon if we wanted to. What's to say a century later we won't have the technology to reach other planets in our solar system for example?

I would love to see a terraformed Mars as well. How awesome would that be? We, as a life form, learning to be able to adapt to two planets and live in them at once. Sadly, terraforming hasn't even begun yet and you guys are right, it will take ages to terraform it. The pollution machines will need to go first, then small plants, then trees, then smaller animals etc.
 
Scientists have found a planet in a solar system generally thousands of light years away that very much resembles earth except for 2 major differences which are related.

The first: It's sun is massively smaller then our own which leads to difference 2.
The planet doesn't not rotate. It moves around the sun in a fixed position. When i mean fixed position it always faced a the sun, and i mean only one side does, constantly. This has caused the mimic earth to form massive quantities of Ice 7, which is a variation of that is under so much pressure that the molecules literally align in straight columns and lines.

And whilst this may seem very dumbfounded to say, i don't think space is the final frontier. I believe time is the final frontier, and one man will never be able to touch. And the main reason for this, is that man would ruin the present by traveling back into the past. Though this is offtopic i do think it should be subject to debate.
 
I'm going to have to say, sadly, no. We won't be traveling too often in space.

Simple reasons. As far as we know, there's nothing of immediate value (Despite a ****load of scientific value), and it's too expensive to go some place like that when there is nothing of immediate value there.

By stuff of value, I mean resources, minerals, water. At best, the only thing for sure that we could harvest right off the bat would be solar radiation on to sun panels, but we can already get that more effectively by leaving satellites just barely outside of Earth's atmosphere. (Other moons have an atmosphere, while no where near the density of Earths, is still greater than plain ol' space.)
 
There is so much hype about space travel, to mars maybe but to anywhere outside our solar system, even halfway into our solar system no almost certainly not, my reasoning:

It takes 8mins for the light from the sun to get to earth, the distance from the earth to the sun is about 93 million miles, give or take.

The star nearest to the Sun is Proxima Centauri which is 23,462,748,000,000 miles away from the sun, seeing this star would mean we look at it today as it was millions, almost billions of years ago so by the time we get anywhere near the planets we have our sights set on now they will either not exist anymore or will have moved to another location so its pretty much safe to say there is no universe anymore just images of what it was like.
 
perhaps not, but then if everyone thought like that we wouldn't even be in space right now. in a few billion years the sun will burn out and the earth will die with it. if humanity has any interest at all in preserving itself beyond that time, now's the time to start thinking about how to do it.
 
outer space !

I kinda wanted to post this in the sleeping forest section, i personally think its important but some people may find this silly lol. Has anyone put real thought into how big space really is. And the possliablity of life besides us. Like, how far does space go on for?? what other planets and things could be out in the farthest parts of space. Is space endless? I want to know so bad.:worried:
 
Yes i have thought about it, I don't really think there are such things as Aliens exactly but i do think there are other life forms out there maybe not human, i don't think we will ever find out in our life time if there are other life forms out there though,
 
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