Will humanity ever become a interstellar civilization?

I would like to know is it possible for humanity to become a interstellar civilization in 500 or 1000 years from now? How likely will this happen?

Ever?

Most likely

I'm positive we'll return to the stone ages before that happens.

@GazaAli: yep as disappointing and depressing a future that is i think your right.

Returning to the stone age may be necessary to recognize our mistakes as a civilization and rise above them to become a far more technological society. Unfortunately we are unwilling to spend money on scientific advancement. We could have landed on Mars and other bodies in our solar system by now if we only came together and did it. That in turn could lead to bigger and better technologies to take us farther and farther into the stars. Becoming an interstellar civilization is certainly possible but it would take radical societal change. Specifically people's strong negativity towards science.

when we can work together as human being, yes.

I think that returning to the stone ages would only serve the purpose of repeating our mistakes all over again. We are unwilling to spend money on scientific advancement because we're too busy wasting money on military spending, wars, setting each other's up, indolent extravagances, private jets and the list goes on and on. The current technological advancement of human civilization is only a mutation in the history of the humankind. It will undo itself sooner than we might think.

it sounds like your hinting we might find Prothean ruins on Mars that will enable us to use Mass Relays to travel out our Solar System ;) :)

Too bad the world is no Star Wars.

Look at any countries national budget. Such a miniscule percent of their budget goes to scientific endeavors. More likely it goes to the military and unnecessary spending programs. If the world economy spent even a moderate amount of their money on science programs, starting with young people in school and on through actual scientific communities our scientific discoveries and abilities would be far beyond where they are today.

We could be interstellar now. People would probably have to leave Earth as children and arrive seniors.

pretty sure Firaxis is working on it as we speak.

@ferrari2001: "History Repeats Itself"

That was said for a reason.

To answer your question OP, we dont really have a choice. It's either find a way to sustain life off of this rock, or perish when the sun dies.

If those people going to Mars start breeding if/when they're there and manages to survive then we could say we're interstellar.

Suuuuuuure.

You gotta think that only 100 years ago the horse was just being replaced as the dominant form of travel and our rape of the planet was just beginning.

No. What you are talking about is still out of our grasp. Even Mars doesn't have the mass necessary to keep any oxygen produced from floating away into space.

We still have a looooooooong way to go and with BP announcing that the Earth has only a little over 50 years of oil left..........

As long as we continue to exist for milleniums to come then we will have to and we will do so. Our technological advancements will not halt when it comes to our survival. Once we can begin terraforming and acquire faster space travel, then it happens.

I think it would be more likely for an artificial intelligence to come to Earth from a distant star then biological.

within the next 50 years we will be one with the help of outside forces of course.

The U.S. could make a huge difference in worldwide scientific research and beyond if it were taught more in schools and science-oriented companies were funded better.

http://www.cnet.com/news/neil-degrasse-tyson-the-us-doesnt-have-to-lose-its-edge-in-science/

@GazaAli: Please tell me you intentionally got that mixed up -.-

No, the religious nutjobs will ruin human civilization before then.

Yes. I definitely think we'll get there. Sad I won't be around to experience it.

Plenty of time to get it done if we're not spending it raging wars against each other or throwing laws, regulations, and cutting funds for researching space travel...

@tocool340: In other words, you doubt it lol

I tend to agree with this. We're still humans, and as a result our species is still subject to the same kinds of limitations as our primitive ancestors. Look at all of the squabbling and lack of foresight and planning that people typically complain about, and for the most part those kinds of flaws have existed for as long as humans have existed.

But that sort of leads to this point...people have been accomplishing incredible feats of science and engineering for basically all of recorded history. But space travel was still impossible because the infrastructure wasn't in place and societies weren't structured in such a way as to be conducive to such a task. Oh, sure, people were smart as shit. But even if they knew all of the principles of space travel, there'd still be no practical way to do it.

I think the fallacy that some people have is the idea that human civilization is an increasing series of steps forward in all areas. I don't think that's the case, because some things are simply a product of their times. It's not enough to just be smart at science, a lot of little factors have to come together in just the right way for the opportunity to even exist. For example, we are ridiculously reliant on fossil fuels. Even if fossil fuels aren't gonna fuel our next generation spaceships, it's fossil fuels that allow for the kind of civilization that has the luxury of building jet propulsion laboratories and whatnot. We're also just "lucky" to live in such a globally interconnected civilization. The scientists working for NASA come from all over the place. The materials needed to make spaceships possible come from all over the place. No matter how brilliant people are, no individual country can do this by themselves. They need scientists from here, fuels from over there, metal wiring from some other place, yadda yadda yadda. If anything occurs to disrupt this kind of connectivity between different parts of the planet, then say goodbye to our space programs.

Point being: space travel is a result of the kind of civilization in which we live. I see no reason to believe that such civilizations will continue to exist indefinitely when that only makes up a tiny fraction of human history. We're still a long way away from figuring out interstellar space travel. And that leaves a long time for us to turn back into the kind of civilization for which interstellar space travel (or ANY space travel) is practically impossible. I'm not saying that I think that interstellar space travel is impossible. I'm saying that I believe there's probably a relatively short window of opportunity for us to do it, and time is running out. If we miss that window of opportunity, then it's game over. Not freaking happening. And that won't necessarily be because of a lack of scientific knowledge, but because of geopolitical factors and a lack of necessary resources.

Yeah we will. Take that to the bank

No.

They keep discovering new reserves. The oilsands in Alberta have been estimated at larger total volume than Saudi Arabia's wells at their peak. And there are new prospects for oilsands in Russia that make Alberta look like chump change.

Plus, there have been strides in artificial petroleum products as well.

We won't ever run out of oil, we just need to shift the things that waste it (i.e. cars, not manufacturing) to a renewable resource (like hydrogen-electric hybrids).

I was going to say the same thing. It's a pretty sad mistake coming from (I would assume) a gamer...We might have to get him banned for a week so he can learn his lesson XD

I can't wait. The official mod included in Civ IV complete edition outer space was so awesome.

Let's populate Mars do it like the Europeans coming to the new world

not until we figure out how to vastly lengthen our lifespans

Wait, why have I not heard about this? My collection came with some mod called After War, with mechs and bubble shields around cities and such.

I sincerely hope you're right, but I'm wary of your claims as to "never" running out of oil. Besides, I heard it wasn't economically feasible to pull from oilsands (unless you want $50 per gallon gas). I could be wrong.

What troubles me is I ass-umed all plants eventually turned into oil under pressure for millions of years, but now I've learned that 90% of the oil on the planet was created millions of years ago when it was so hot that there literally wasn't any ice on the Earth (I forgot what it was called) and there were mass extinctions. I didn't know it was such a specific set of circumstances that led to oil formation.

The mod is called Final Frontier, check it out; http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Frontier

It was included with Beyond the Sword Expansion. That Galactic Civilization II game is way too complicated, Final Frontier mod feels like any Sid Meier Civ but in space!

I can see us going backwards, but the stone age?

Wouldn't that require a loss of all knowledge our species has ever acquired? I can't see that happening.

Corporations definitely will. If we want to go as a united Earth, however, we have to first actually unite. That won't happen until the middle east gets its shit together. Same could be said for Africa as well.

This is true but science is advancing quickly in same avenues and very slowly in others. For example, weaponry, medical technology and consumer goods are advancing rapidly. However things like space exploration, energy sources, motor vehicles, infrastructure. We are for the most part still using decade old technologies in these various fields. They work, sure, but with proper funding they could expand and change just as rapidly as the other scientific fields. We seem to not fund scientific research unless it somehow provides immediate benefit to ourselves. That is our problem. What ever happened to discovery for the sake of discovery.

@Allicrombie:

Oh .... dear.

He was referencing Mass Effect, not Star Wars .____.

I find it odd that nobody has yet mentioned that the biggest obstacle in the way of human space exploration is radiation.

It is a very huge obstacle but we've already got a variety of methods that would protect the astronauts from the harmful effects of that radiation. The problem is actually coming together, finding the funds and building the devices that would keep radiation away from the passengers. Even with today's technology we have the ability to overcome harmful solar radiation.

Most likely.

It'll probably take a few centuries, but there aren't many other options. Earth won't hold out forever.

I know that, seeing how I played the ME trilogy and never touched anything Star Wars. I was waiting for someone to fall for that one :3

Once we get to Mars and find that mass effect shit we'll be good to go.

No amount of knowledge will do the humankind any good if the planet became uninhabitable. Moreover, knowledge can be lost and forgotten through prolonged periods of calamities, wars and brutal contention for basic resources of survival and their scarcity. Most people think that the current human civilization is the accumulation of human knowledge and intellect in its totality since the dawn of history. If that was the case, we would have been much more advanced than we are now, considering that there existed certain civilizations centuries and even millennia ago which reached mind blowing level of intellectual and to an extent scientific advancements and left behind wondrous vestiges of architecture and intellectual works. I personally believe that the historical movement has been invoking a particular pattern since the dawn of history: it progresses to a certain point in time, allowing for civilizations to come into being and then ceasing to be and it provides the ground for historical events to take place. Then that same historical movement defaults back, forcing the world, which has humanity only as a part of it, to more or less start over. That cycle has been repeating history since the beginning of time and it is responsible for reality, for space and time as we know them, for history, for past civilizations, for all the major events in history and for everything that is to come. With that said, I consider it extremely foolish to be under the impression that the current historical epoch is any different, that it is perpetual and shall never cease to be. It will cease to be and the germs of the demise or the abolition of this epoch are contained in the very same human civilization that constitutes this epoch, as far as we humans are concerned.

Yea I wanted to trap someone with that deceitful comment :3

I played the ME trilogy back when I had my gaming PC. I even played ME2 twice seeing how I always regretted not getting the opportunity of seducing an Asari (I opted for Tali expecting her to finally remove that visor. Needless to say I was disappointed).

@GazaAli: I replayed the whole trilogy last month and I have to say my respect for that game went up tenfold. I took the time to listen to all the extra dialogues, actually pay attention to the side quests instead of just shooting everything and moving on; there's a lot of heart warming moments there =D

I had that in mind too when I replayed ME2, which happened before the release of ME3. When ME3 arrived I already learned how to appreciate the game properly. I would give it another go except that I sold my gaming PC for scrap :(