Will we ever colonize space?

Yesterday I was thinking, which 16th century European human being could ever have imagined there was another world far away from Europe before Columbus explored the New World. No one was aware of the existence of the Americas, the New World, though, we were able to explore and colonize it, many replaced old Europe for the Americas in order to start a completely new life in the New World.

How big would be the chance that we'll find another ''living'' planet? Currently, our one and only world is becoming a big mess, population is growing too fast, global warming cannot be stopped anymore, devastating new ice ages lay ahead.

With China, the US, Russia and Europe increasing their space programs there should be a chance we'll soon (within 100 years?) find another planet where we could emigrate to. After all, how much do we actually know about space, we don't even know exactly how big it is? I think we're currently in the same situation as Columbus was in the 16th century, starting to enter an entire new era.

What's your opinion on my thoughts, are we in the near future going to explore and colonize a new planet?

[edit on 18-9-2006 by Mdv2]

Well, if we want to continue this race, we are gonna have to colonize other planets sooner or later. This star will run out of energy sometime within the next 1 billion years or so, and that means no more life on Earth.

Actually, your 16th Century European analogy is quite a good one. However, unlike the 16th Century, our present technology is in a better position to tell us what awaits us before we do go to wherever we may happen to decide to colonise. 100 years is not a bad timeframe to put the first moves to colonise other Earth-like planets in. I believe putting our eggs into the Moon and Mars baskets is a little too risky, considering the work that needs to be done at either place to make things habitable for a colony. Neither will hold great populations......with terraforming we may get to see a few hundred million on Mars, but not for a few centuries yet. We would be far better off looking elsewhere for somewhere to go and colonise, that somewhere being closer to Earth in its conditions. Which would mean a necessity to look outside the Solar System.

Our chances of finding another living planet are very good, given what we know about the formation of planets and the types of stellar systems that are out there. We'll most likely know of quite a few Earth's within the next 25 or so years. However, given our current propensity to try and wreck the place, we really need to get our act together here before we go and potentially ruin another "pristine" planet. Yet although we do cause damage to the environment of this planet, don't overestimate our capacity to do so. So far as fixing the problem, that's the easy solution. The hard part is getting everyone to get up off their collective butts and put pressure on the governments and multinationals to change their tunes as well. They dont' give a toss about anyone but themselves, and the only way to change things is to force the change, diplomatically or otherwise. Even if that means tossing the lot of them out on their rears and putting people in who will listen and do what's right.

Anyway, what will be needed to get us out and into the final frontier, will be a change in attitudes here. We need to get away from the permanent warfooting economies that are driven by the military-industrial complex. The vast amounts of money spent on weapons and such would be far better off being spent in more urgent and pressing areas of our global society. Basically we need to grow up and actually learn from our failings. Get away from the greed based systems we have. Then, with the money that's freed up, use some of it to develop a world space program. Free up any "secret" technologies now being hoarded by the elite few. Can you imagine what could be done if we spent, say, $500 billion a year on space and space research??. Then imagine what would happen if they managed to find an Earth-like planet orbiting , say, one of either of the main stars of the Alpha Centauri system. Or even anyone of the 500 or so Sun-like G class stars within 100 light years of here?? The exChairman of NASA, Dan Goldin, said he'd push the Space Shuttle to get there. I can tell you now they'd have warp drive faster than you could say "Jack Robinson", especially if they spent the amount each year that I mentioned above. Forget your pansy solar sails, fusion rockets or anything as prosaic as that. Where necessity requires something new, it usually gets done in 1/10th the time it would normally take. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. With the world's top scientists on the problem, more would get done in 6 months than they've had in the last 60 years at Area 51. Or wherever else they do their "ET" research. There'd be none of this hiding knowledge and compartmentalisation of research.

If all of this is to be achieveable, then the general public need to push this agenda, and make the governments come to heel. Remember, we're ultimately their bosses and also the ones who hold the purse strings of these big corporations. We just need to grit our teeth and be prepared for some pain in order to make a lot of gain.

Wow, nice words man.

I am 100% with you on ALL of it. Wish I still a WATS for you, but sadly, I spent them on jra!!! lol!

man that would be a great world if everyone worked togeatther, but it is so unrealistic that it makes me laugh. no offence intended but there are far to many greedy people in the world.

I agree, but it wouldn't hurt trying to change the status quo. Even if you ultimately failed, at least you could say you tried. Anyway, some change would happen because nothing stays the same forever. No matter how corrupted and twisted.