Space Exploration and Colonization 2008 - 2040
August 07 2008 / by Mielle Sullivan / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Space Year: Beyond Rating: 4
The exploration and colonization of space have long been crucial and exciting aspects of how people envision future civilization. But how will our place in space take shape over the next few decades? Some clear patterns have emerged in near-term space predictions including rapidly expanding space tourism in the next two years, asteroid mining by 2020 and multiple nations with settlements on the moon by 2025. Take a look for yourself:
To view the multiple events in one year, click on the little plus icons at the bottom of the timeline. Many of the events include cool videos. Enjoy!
Comment Thread (3 Responses)
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1. Space tourism. Already nobody cares when another rich guy goes to space.
2. Establishing permanent lunar bases. Unless we’ll find something really really useful to do there, this will be as exciting as our bases in Antarctica or space station (that is – nobody will care).
3. Getting people to Mars. That would be a great achievement but soon people will start asking what exactly is the return on a trillion dollar spent on that.
4. Mining the riches of asteroids and the Moon. Aside from mind boggling costs involved, why does anybody assumes that asteroids are made of really valuable stuff?
Posted by: johnfrink August 08, 2008
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Johnfrink,
1. The cost of space tourism will come down dramatically within the firs few years. Though it will probably always be expensive, it will not always be for the super rich.
2. If you read the article linked in the timeline about the presence of Helium 3 on the moon, you’d know this is an incredibly valuable resource.
3. Putting people on Mars has been a goal of many nations since at least the 1960s to prove what we can do technologically. The original space race yielded many advances and discoveries that we use today as well.
4. If you read the article on Asteroid mining linked to in the timeline, you would know that we have done spectral analysis of the light reflected from asteroids and have determined many are very rich in valuable metals.
Posted by: Mielle Sullivan August 09, 2008
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Establishing permanent lunar bases is the most exciting thing for me. Wouldn’t it help both space tourism and mining?
Posted by: jvarden August 12, 2008
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