How far are the human race from colonizing the universe?

It's been a dream of humans for millenia to move into space.

Will I see a moon base with in the next 20 years? Why not ?

Will  we see mining of astroids soon ?

There is a concept , the space elevator on the table, only a few billion dollars. Is there a more benifitial project , for the human race,  anyware?

I like the space elevator idea, but I'm not really convinced it is practical engineering. The strongest material (carbon nanotubes) is scarcely strong enough in tiny quantities, and may not be possible to achieve on the huge scale required. One fault in the structure, a rip and ...

The moon is a nice challenge, offers several interesting scientific possibilities, but is a vast, expensive effort. Compare it to much easier spots like the South pole or the bottom of the ocean. Space is a bit like a huge desert, mostly very inhospitable and with huge transport costs between the places that are not quite so bad. Asteroid mining is appealling, but the material mined would have to be stupendously valuable to justify the cost until some sort of automated self-replicating technology leverages the cost of getting there.

Concerning Mars, no-one has adequately addressed the fact that the exposure to radiation involved for a human is a huge problem. It would be like being in the Fukushima recovery crew for a couple of years.

The human exploration and even maybe the colonisation of space will happen, but we're not close to ready. I want to see much more advanced unmanned exploration with intelligent automata. They can show us everything we could find by going there.

I must sound really cynical.

Didn't know that about corbon nano tubes, the articel i read specifficaly refering to CNT as part of the solution. There must be a better way to reach space than chemical rockets, my humble opinion.

Don't believe that money should be an obstical, personally i can't think of many better project to spend money on. Sure, there are may worthwile cause on earth.  

Mine's here on earth are also inhospitable place's, just a bit easier than space. Mining the sea, espesially deep is extremly expensive.

Really think we've got to grip with the danger's of radiation, and it's really dangers stuff.  Fukusima really is a sad situation although it also proves that we've come a long way to liveing in harmony with nucleur power.

Purely from a progress point of view i ask myself if these souldn't be some of the objects we sould be striving for ?

Once we master how to manipulate time , then long distance space travel will be possible. Our current understanding of the universe does not allow this. If aliens do visit our planet , then it is possible , we need a Einstein of the present day to come up with some new radical ideas. I personally don't see the point of sending men to mars , which will take ages and reveil not much. Once we can manipulate time , then it's worth spending lots of cash investigating the cosmos.

Sure smiffy. Even though there is such a thing as time dilation i think we missunderstand the impact of it.

Yes time is another dimension, and the only way i can understand the theory of relativity is via the lorenzo transformations, as a mathimatical and theoritical phinomina.

From a practical and logical point i don't think time travel is possible. Again just my humbel opinion, no impercal proof either way, other than the "time dilation experiment".

I think it's all about the spin of the atom. If it's possible to slow it down , then the energy will be changed from rotational to linear. Atoms must be in a completely different time zone , if they spin at close to the speed of light. By slowing down the spin , would altar it's place in space time allowing it to move linearly , which is what we perceive as momentum

Yes, and all that only happens at atom, photon, elctron level. The rule's of nature and phisics at that level are not the same as the human scale. Some curve ball.