Question: How close are we to space travel

Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

Well, we can already go to space. New satellites are being put up all the time, and we probably could have gotten to Mars in the 1980s if we put enough money into it. People are always in the space station, doing experiments and making silly YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

The reason we stopped going into space so much was because the Russians and Americans were racing to see who could get the furthest, partly because it made them look better, but also because space technology was good for making missiles and military equipment, and because going to the Moon or Earth orbit meant they could spy on each other with satellites. When the Soviet Union collapsed, this “Space Race” competition stopped. Countries like China are starting to try to get to the Moon, though they can’t compete with America for technology just yet.

In the future, there are plenty of reasons to go into space. There are minerals in asteroids, and plenty of space for solar panels. But the problem is that getting to space is hard, and needs a lot of energy. Going to other planets is good for science and a great achievement, but there’s not much there to keep people alive (very little water and air, and the temperatures are too low or too hot, plus you’d need to bring soil, machines, etc), and not much money to be made to do it. So people are slow to do that, but it’s definitely possible. The question is now whether we can do it, but why we want to, as governments and companies and as a species as a whole.