Scratch

I think the moon is the first step, then Mars, then we'll probably have to go out of the solar system. That will mean we'll have to develop near light-speed travel (solar sails?) Or it will take a long time to get there.

Mayhem wrote:

No chance in 5 or 10, especially since it would take nearly 2 years just to get there!  Maybe a non-self-sustaining micro-colony in 50, but nothing remotely independent.  Space is just too big for our current levels of tech.

well, actually, a hoffman transfer orbit would be able to take a spacecraft from the Earth's orbital distance to Mars in only 259 days.

Robert Zubrin, Founder of the Mars Society, has written numerous books (see "The Case for Mars") describing how, at our current technological level, we could send a mission to Mars and stay there in a sustainable base for years, and return them home. It is very possible for humans to colonize some of outer space in the next few decades, and it was so 10 years ago as well. Now, it is even more so. We just need Obama to fund a large Mars Mission in a smart way. The moon is not that great for humans to live on, for various reasons. You can do lots of research on how to have a mission to outer space, but some of your assumptions about the realities of space travel these days are too much like "Urban Myths". We can go to Space. The only problem is motivation, money, and so on. Society should not procrastinate, because the benefits of becoming a space-faring civilization are huge.

After all, space is practically infinite.

(the only finite boundaries of the universe are relevant to cosmology and multiverses and stuff. the amount of energy and resources that exist our galaxy alone is much more than we could ever need. the amount of energy and resources on the Earth is only a fraction of the total amount that exists in the Solar System! One day, Earth will be just a paradise spot that is hard to get to from space, and Mars will be the port of economic activity of the Solar System.

Mayhem wrote:

Huge difference between getting to Mars and colonising it.

And yeah, almost any problem can be solved if you throw enough money at it but nobody is going to be spending the kind of moneys needed to get to Mars any time soon.  There are, currently, much better things to be spending money on.

yeah, in one instance, you go back to Earth after a couple of years, in another, you stay there and reproduce and create a new generation and stuff. and eventually build up an infrastructure. but once you are on Mars, it is a lot easier to stay there to colonize it than it is to live off of resources on like the moon.

it actually takes LESS energy to get to Earth's moon from Mars than it does from Earth actually.