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I am onboard with Mars One, I can't afford the card now, but I'm going to get the card someday... I'm saving up to fund my daily life right now plus a move to Alaska in the future.
From the colonization examples on this planet I doubt that anyone would colonize another planet unless they could make or steal a tremendous amount of wealth. After all North and South America were discovered, explored and colonized by some of the most rapacious people that ever existed on this planet.
Now if we discovered a 2 billion year old planet with a similar distribution of elements we would find much higher concentrations of fissionable materials. Going after them might be worthwhile.
From the colonization examples on this planet I doubt that anyone would colonize another planet unless they could make or steal a tremendous amount of wealth. After all North and South America were discovered, explored and colonized by some of the most rapacious people that ever existed on this planet.
From the colonization examples on this planet I doubt that anyone would colonize another planet unless they could make or steal a tremendous amount of wealth. After all North and South America were discovered, explored and colonized by some of the most rapacious people that ever existed on this planet.
Now if we discovered a 2 billion year old planet with a similar distribution of elements we would find much higher concentrations of fissionable materials. Going after them might be worthwhile.
What you are describing is the commercialization of space, not colonization. I have no doubt that will eventually happen, once it becomes more cost effective and private companies can figure out how to make a profit.
I think the government's role will continue to be focused more on pure science and setting up research bases, but also not colonization.
By colonization I am referring to people willing to live on another planet without any other motivation than to live out their lives as they would on Earth. Think of them like the original Jamestown Colony of Virginia in 1616.
I suppose, at some distant point in the future, if there ever becomes a one-world government and choices are limited, there could be a need to venture to other worlds in order to seek additional political or religious choices that cannot be found on Earth. They would have to be pretty fanatical to go to those lengths of colonizing another world on principle or religious belief. A world at war might also give people a reason to seek a new life on another world, if they had that option.
In either case it will be a very long time before we are able to consider the question of colonization. At least for the time being space will remain the province of governments for research and defense and eventually the private sector for commercialization.
Another reason to seek life on another world is a killer Earth asteroid.
We have the ability to mitigate such problems these days. Currently there are only two small asteroids that have a Torino Scale of 1, which means they have about 1 in a 500 chance of impacting with Earth in 2040 and the other in 2048. The largest one, 2011 AG5 is 140 meters (459 feet) in diameter.
Should asteroid 2011 AG5 impact the Earth in 2040, it will begin breaking up at an altitude of 147,000 feet, and strike the ground in a broken condition traveling at 4.23 miles per second. The impact energy would be equivalent to 23.9 megatons of TNT. It will create a crater 0.948 miles in diameter, 1,330 feet deep. No fireball is created, therefore, there is no thermal radiation damage. An earthquake of 5.5 magnitude is created. Outside of the crater itself, there will be little or no damage.
Unless it strikes in an ocean (very likely scenario as most of the world is ocean) in which case every shoreline around that ocean will be devastated.
The shorelines will not be devastated by 2011 AG5. At only 140 meters if it hit 100 miles west of Los Angeles, it would take 50.3 minutes after impact before the tsunami arrived, and the wave would only be 2.6 meters (8.4 feet) high.
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