A team of researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has calculated how long it will take humanity to achieve new milestones in space exploration. And among the highlights are the first human-manned missions landing on Mars, selected objects from the Asteroid Belt, and some moons of Jupiter and Saturn before the end of the 21st century. The 23rd century will have us contemplate human-manned interstellar mission launches to exoplanets some 40 light-years from now ; we will reach the star Proxima Centauri in 2254, while missions to other galaxies will have to wait until the end of the XXIV century.
Spatial roadmap
According to a team of NASA scientists who published an article on the arXiv prepress server, humanity entered a “window of danger” when the first nuclear weapons were developed and deployed near the end of World War II. According to the document, this “window of danger” will remain open “until robust colonies outside the world become a reality.” The study explores when humans will be able to leave Earth and spread out among the stars, building a model based on empirical data from space exploration and computing power during the first six decades of the “space age”, also using Moore’s Law. .
If all goes according to plan, by the end of 2024 humans will have set foot on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. NASA’s mission, known as the Artemis program, will be the first manned mission to the Moon since Apollo 17, which landed on the lunar surface in 1972.
Artemis is considered the first step in preparing for a future mission to the planet Mars, but a new report suggests that humans should aim to go even further before the end of this century. First, humans should have been able to land on Mars in 2038 . To the asteroid belt around the year 2064. The study also specifies that trips to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn should be within reach before the beginning of the XXII century. Furthermore, the moons Titan and Enceladus, which orbit Saturn, and Europa and Callisto, which orbit Jupiter, should be the target of space exploration for the next 80 years. And finally, in 2254, humans could travel to the nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, which is only 4.2 light-years away from us, in the constellation Centaurus.
Thus, by the XXIII century, we could reach the limits of the solar system and, by the end of the XXIV century, we could begin to travel to other star systems.
It’s certainly a refreshing, out-of-the-box thought experiment, illustrating the importance of humans finding a home away from the current planet we inhabit, a sentiment long held by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
“An aggressive and sustained space exploration program, including colonization, is considered critical to the long-term survival of the human race,” the authors write.
Scientists have often hypothesized a “great filter” that keeps intelligent civilizations on their way to self-annihilation. It is a possible answer to the Fermi paradox that, as early as 1950, drew attention to the lack of clear evidence of extraterrestrial life, despite the incomprehensible number of stars and planets in the known universe.
Referencia: Avoiding the “Great Filter”: A Projected Timeframe for Human Expansion Off-World
by Jonathan H. JiangPhilip E. Rosen and Kristen A. Fahy
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
Chevron Energy Technology Company, Houston, TX 77002, USA
Galaxies 2021, 9(3), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies9030053
Received: 27 June 2021 / Revised: 13 July 2021 / Accepted: 22 July 2021 / Published: 27 July 2021
