Space travel and habitability of other planets
Space travel
People often underestimate how big the universe is and how much it has expanded since the big bang. Often people will complain about a walk being too long, or a drive being too long, or even a flight. But can we even grasp how LONG it would even take to make a significant leap of distance in our vast universe? The Big Bang occurred around 13.8 billion years ago, and since then the universe has been expanding at speeds of light.
As of today, 2022, the idea of exploring our own solar system which is one of many solar systems in our galaxy, and one of many many many galaxies in the universe is already an incredible feat. In July 1969 Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, was the first man ever to step foot on mars. Since then until this date, no man has ever stepped foot on mars, which is our second closest planet. The distance from earth to mars is around 384,000km away, and from earth to mars is a whopping 255 million km away. This is nearly 1000 times the distance, a human would have to cover via a rocket to make it all the way to the moon.
Compare the mere distance just to Mars, with the rest of our universe is so insignificant that it puts questions on whether or not mankind will ever in history be able to explore outside of our galaxy, let alone our solar system. Technology has developed greatly over time, and even more so in the last 20 years, but when will technology reach it's upper limit to become unable to explore the unknown, whether it be from physics limiting us, or our own resources from doing so?
Habitability of other planets
Within our solar system, there currently marks only one planet that has even close to the right living standards for man kind, Mars. Mercury and Venus are just far too hot for habitability, Jupiter and Saturn are just far too giant to even walk on, as the weight of own bones due to the effect of gravity will crumble on it selves and Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are just too far away from our sun to provide anywhere near appropriate temperatures for the sake of living. So this leaves us with only one option, Mars. Mars is located close enough to the sun that is adequate enough for humans to live on, it's size is not the same as earth but not so much different to have gravity be the limiting factor. Seems like a perfect planet?
However it is not so simple. Elon Musk has been working towards driving man kind to be able to sustain life on another planet. From getting there in the first place, to having the required technologies to make it survival, all come into play in the grand scheme of things. With the basic factors of survival such as food and water, Mars meets these to an extent. Dutch researchers demonstrated that crops such as tomato, cress, and mustard could grow in Martian regolith simulant, suggesting that they could grow on Mars. Alongside with this, water in the form of ice, or as water vapour has been detected on Mars, to suggest these two basic requirements aren't out of the question.
There are many environmental factors to consider as well, not just the climate, but things like magnetic field, an ozone layer to protect us from radiation are a few uncontrollable factors that have the potential to make life on Mars impossible. However, with the development of technology at the rate it has been going in the last 20 years can make something like this possible, even if it is in 500 or a thousand years time.
The real question is, when will our development of technology halt, and will that leave mankind doomed to exist on earth forever until we have depleted all of it's resources?
