How long do you think until the governments and general scociety begin to wonder about inhabiting other planets? (as

Question: How long do you think until the governments and general scociety begin to wonder about inhabiting other planets? (as from a scientific point of view the earth will not last forever).
- Keywords:
  future,
  planet,
  space travel
Asked by BrennanW to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 16 Nov 2014.
- Julian Onions answered on 16 Nov 2014:
  
  I think they do, but it often isn’t high on the agenda. When you compare it to balancing the budget, looking after things like the NHS and protecting the country, visiting another planet doesn’t often appeal as a sort term vote winner, so governments often don’t put it too high on their lists.
  
  Commercially its difficult to see how to make a profit on these ventures, so companies so far haven’t been too interested. However a couple of companies have looked at things like mining asteroids, which mightbe very economically viable (they tend to be good places to find heavy metals). Similarly the Mars one program is looking at getting people to Mars based of a TV like format.
  
  Once there is a good infrastructure, I think things might well take off. Space tourism, and lots of other things then open up. So I hope, but after the success of the Apollo program, we seem to have not moved very far.
- Helen Johnson answered on 16 Nov 2014:
  
  I agree, it’s difficult to justify spending lots of money on space to the public, the people who vote governments into power, because they are more focused on the economy, schools, healthcare and fixing the problems we have with our own planet (global warming etc). I even saw some people complaining about the Rosetta mission to comet 67P, on facebook, even though this only cost every person in Europe about the same as a cup of coffee!
  
  In the 60s/70s space exploration and the Apollo missions etc. were driven by the Cold War and the ‘space race’ between the USA and Russia. Nowadays we don’t have that driving force. I think a lot will be up to commercial companies like SpaceX and MarsOne.

Question: How long do you think until the governments and general scociety begin to wonder about inhabiting other planets? (as from a scientific point of view the earth will not last forever).

Comments