how long...

[Danny Ocean]

The better question is when will a nation, or private company, make a space elevator? Because that is cheaper than repeatedly launching rockets up into space. The nations of the earth will not colonize the moon until we build one of those. Also there's the problem of who gets to colonize what. America claimed the moon, but does that really make it theirs? Until we answer questions like those space colonization is impossible.

Both the moon and the Earth rotate, and the moon moves around the Earth, how could you affix it us without stopping it or us moving and in doing so generally screwing up the global ecosystem?

Colonies, Moon: 987 years.
Colonies, Mars: 1012 years.
Other galaxy: 2369 years.
Alien race: impossible to estimate, could be tomorrow could be never; too many factors.[sup]fixed-ish[/sup]

Punctuation. Or spelling. Or missing words. I can't tell.

 

[I III II X4]

"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." Who says the alien has to breathe oxygen? Who says it must be bipedal? Who says it has to be physically tangible?!

Ugh, as for colonizing the moon, I fear that people will also want to mine the moon (poor Luna!) as well. Yeah, yeah...about that, let's look at every other post-apocalyptic science fiction. First, what happened to the moon? It asploded. Second, why did this happen? We mined it!!

I wouldn't care if the scientific community proved that there would be no repercussions from the mining, I'd still be against it on the grounds that nobody owns the moon, and that we don't even have the right to reap it of it's resources.

About the further colonization efforts by mankind, I'd rather see us floating through space in huge vessels than see a planet be terraformed, though if we happen to find a habitable planet that has no sentient life, or that's on it way to becoming sentient in a few hundred years (not sure how we'd determine this), then okay, let's set up shop.

 

[Dudemeister]

the answer is never.

I am not one to believe that there is any benefit to colonizing anything that does not harbour life, and I believe the whole of space to be void of life except for our delightful little planet.

How bleak is that.

 

[SnowCold]

Moon? I say 50 years, though 120+ till people will really live there, insted of studying and meaby super vaccations

 

[SnowCold]

I personally think that we will NEVER find Aliens. I believe that somewhere in the vastness of space they have to be lurking. But who knows. odds were against humans, we turned out fine. (coughs)

WOW! your the first person I met tht thinks exactly like me on the subject
*hails*

 

[Fraught]

Moon colonies, 75-100 years. Mars? 100-150. Interstellar? 400 years at least. We'd need some sort of teleporter or something to take us to the nearest star in one lifetime. It would be about that time we find a habitable world to find alien life. Let's hope they won't hate us.

EDIT: We're likely to never go to another galaxy. The distances are just too great.

But people could just, you know, live on the rocket that goes to the nearest star, and people could make children on that ship, then die, and then the children could grow up and continue that.

Although, where would they get that much fuel?

 

[Death Magnetic]

I believe there's a lot of life out there. The thing is though, the Universe is pretty damn vast, we're absolutely miniscule. The chances of finding life, even if it's in the nearest solar system to us, it'll still be hard to traverse. Also, the chances of them being intelligent is pretty slim as well. If we did meet aliens we'd probably go to war.

-Ricky

 

[thePyro_13]

Japan wants to colonize the moon by 2025, but too bad America already owns it! (hey, finders keepers...lol)

Then the moon probably belongs to a long forgotten tribe of neanderthols.

 

[black lincon]

The better question is when will a nation, or private company, make a space elevator? Because that is cheaper than repeatedly launching rockets up into space. The nations of the earth will not colonize the moon until we build one of those. Also there's the problem of who gets to colonize what. America claimed the moon, but does that really make it theirs? Until we answer questions like those space colonization is impossible.

Both the moon and the Earth rotate, and the moon moves around the Earth, how could you affix it us without stopping it or us moving and in doing so generally screwing up the global ecosystem?

You misunderstand the concept of a space elevator. What a space elevator does is connect something rotating in the earths orbit that rotates around the earth at the same rate as the earth spins, like a space station, to the earth with a large elevator. Then you use the station as a port for spaceships so they don't have to waste fuel on exiting earths atmosphere.

Sorry if that was a bad explanation, I'll leave you with the Wikipedia page if you still don't understand; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

 

[BardSeed]

A lab is supposed to be built on the Moon in 2020; with NASA's current problems, that could be sat back a little. It's possible to use materials found on the Moon to build lab, a large kiln-thing would need to be transported there though. Originally, NASA were going to have their labs transported on the back of walking robots named ATHLETEs.
Supposedly, we're sending people to Mars in 2035 but there's still debates about whether we should be concentrating more on the moon and solving it's mysteries first. Colonisation of Mars is probably 100+ years away; it'll have taken us 50-60 years to colonise the moon, after first visiting(allegedly *shifty eyes*).
There's talk of using the moon to train for the mission to Mars. A crew will spend a year or so(however long the journey to Mars will take) on the international space station, before moving to the moon. The crew will have to survive on the moon, with no outside help, for the amount of time that the mission to Mars(I just like saying it) is scheduled for. Finally, the crew will spend another year on the ISS before returning to Earth.

Life could be found at any time and, the moons of Saturn are suspected of possibly holding life, so it may be closer than you think.
I expect traveling to other solar systems will be hundreds of years off and may require Astronauts to produce offspring while on the mission. This is all assuming that we can develop light-speed travel. I doubt inter-galactic travel will ever be possible.

 

[Ago Iterum]

the answer is never.

I am not one to believe that there is any benefit to colonizing anything that does not harbour life, and I believe the whole of space to be void of life except for our delightful little planet.

Well... I wouldn't say never. Plans have already been made and started, for building space stations on the moon etc. So it will happen some time, in this century, or the next.

And why do you believe there is no other life? There are millions of stars, and other solar systems, that have been proven to exist. With many other suns having planets nearby in the perfect position to harbor life.

We don't know that there's any other life, but it's highly probable, as there are many planets out there in similar conditions to earth.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

the answer is never.

I am not one to believe that there is any benefit to colonizing anything that does not harbour life, and I believe the whole of space to be void of life except for our delightful little planet.

At what point do you think that man will destroy the earth of it's resources?

2200 at the latest

 

[samsprinkle]

I personally think that we will NEVER find Aliens. I believe that somewhere in the vastness of space they have to be lurking. But who knows. odds were against humans, we turned out fine. (coughs)

WOW! your the first person I met tht thinks exactly like me on the subject
*hails*

Hail!

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

Moon colonies, 75-100 years. Mars? 100-150. Interstellar? 400 years at least. We'd need some sort of teleporter or something to take us to the nearest star in one lifetime. It would be about that time we find a habitable world to find alien life. Let's hope they won't hate us.

EDIT: We're likely to never go to another galaxy. The distances are just too great.

But people could just, you know, live on the rocket that goes to the nearest star, and people could make children on that ship, then die, and then the children could grow up and continue that.

Although, where would they get that much fuel?

Antimatter's pretty good fuel, if you can make enough of it. It would take, oh, a metric ton of the superexplosive crap to get to Proxima Centauri, though.

 

[Higurashi]

Japan wants to colonize the moon by 2025, but too bad America already owns it! (hey, finders keepers...lol)

Besides, anyone who has seen Gundam knows what Japan is REALLY up to... *coughcolonydropcough*

I find a bit hilarious anyone could "own" the moon, though. Nonetheless, one can.
Ehe... yeah, that IS bound to happen.

It's a really hard thing to estimate, but I think it'll take quite some time. Unless we discover lost technology on a planet we are soon to visit, of course. I'll just keep my fingers crossed Mass Effect becomes reality.
Nah, I think we'll achieve contact in a thousand to two thousand years maybe. Wonder if it's worth the effort of going into cryopreservation... heh, of course it is.

i think this thread is a bit geeky, but its fun to read all your opinions about this.. haha

scary though haha

Oh, it is VERY geeky. That's just something one has to expect from Escapists.

 

[bad rider]

42!

 

[Snotnarok]

I think we'll land on planets soon but another galaxy? That's so farfetched because of the distance and the power required to just make light speed alone. Galaxies are huge, the universe is even larger still, I don't think that many understand just HOW big the milkyway is and it's not even a large galaxy.

 

[InvisibleMilk]

Why can't we listen to our mothers and keep our hands to ourselves?
If we go poking around for something we don't know if we should find or not, chances are we get punished and we don't get to open it until Christmas?
Be careful, NASA, very careful.

 

[MonkOfDoom]

Moon colonies, 75-100 years. Mars? 100-150. Interstellar? 400 years at least. We'd need some sort of teleporter or something to take us to the nearest star in one lifetime. It would be about that time we find a habitable world to find alien life. Let's hope they won't hate us.

EDIT: We're likely to never go to another galaxy. The distances are just too great.

But people could just, you know, live on the rocket that goes to the nearest star, and people could make children on that ship, then die, and then the children could grow up and continue that.

Although, where would they get that much fuel?

Hmm, interesting point, if we were able to create some sort of self sustaining reaction we could deal with the fuel problem, also their is the possibility of some sort of hibernation for the making it to the other side, you know like in lost in space before the plot became a completely ridiculous, so you wouldnt have to deal with food like in the constant reproduction thing.

 

[DethFan666]

my question to you people at the escapist is how long will it take to colonies the moon, mars another galaxy... how long until we discover another alien race?

searched forums and could not find it sorry if it has been done.

Whenever we get enslaved by a superior race.