Space, the final frontier. And it shall remain that way

I’ve always been interested in Science, and specifically, the ability to travel into space, to travel to far away locations, different planets, different worlds. Whilst for now this may only be a dream, after giving it some thought I came to the conclusion that, apart from the interest in space travel generally, what’s the point? Sure, if the world gets overcrowded then we may need to find places for people to live elsewhere, but apart from that, seriously, what is the point?

Artists impression of a city world

We’d use a chemical engine to propel ourselves into orbit, that alone would cost millions and from there we’d then have to navigate to our destination, which would have to be objects near to us, and when I say near I mean objects where it won’t take millions of generations to get to. The Moon, Mars, Venus and perhaps asteroids are the most viable options here. Apart from the Moon, these places would take years to complete whole missions to them. And what would we gain from this?

Real life image of the surface of Mars.
Next Holiday destination?

Mars, a cold place to be all year around

If there’s life and Mars, it would be a great piece of knowledge, despite the fact it would be single-cell. It would then be known that there could be intelligent life elsewhere. But then what? It’s not like we can contact any of these aliens if they existed, not to mention we wouldn’t even know where to start to locate any.

Up for a bit of probing?

So what else would be useful, recourses? No, because we used so much getting there in the first place, it would just be a waste. Even if it was, say, Helium 3 (see previous post) then we’d still need fuel to take off and deliver it back to Earth. Is it really worth it? Building stations on these worlds is possible, given years of delivery and building in the hostile environments. But the process would cost trillions, not even joking. What government is willing to pay that?

Bases on Mars? Maybe, but we're a long way off

Science would never get that kind of funding, even in a second Cold War. The emptiness of space is just that, empty, there’s nothing for so many miles that until we can figure out a way to transport ourselves around with ease we won’t be leaving our humble planet any time soon. But that’s delving into the world of Science Fiction.