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Originally Posted by antoniseb
If you look at it in terms of where men have been, then yes. If you look at what kind of information we are getting from our space probes and space infrastructure, I don't think it has been slow at all. It's true that in the first ten years we exceded all expectations. Since then expectations have expanded quite a bit.
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Yep, you're exactly right there Anton, that was a pretty sloppy comment of mine. In terms of manned exploration, I expect the next 45 years to be a case of hastening slowly - hopefully including somewhere along that time-line a manned mission to Mars. (Hoepfully - but its certainly no given)
I would expect men/women walking on the moon before 2030, but I am a little skeptical about those first Martian footsteps occuring before 2050. I think it'll be pretty tight - because by mid-century - barring some sort of major catastrophe - China will have the world's biggest economy - and (
likely) its most well-funded space program.
There will be competition there between China and America in all sorts of areas - one can see the beginnings of this even today (can anyone say
yuan?). So it'll be interesting to see whether an atmosphere of competition/(confrontation?) encloses this relationship - or broader co-operation. I believe either is possible - but that will obviously be dictated by the politics of the day.
As for unmanned exploration, I really think this could explode this century - it really could (and this belief is based on the advancements that have occured over the last 25 years as you've pointed out Anton). To be honest - considering how few places our probes have actually gone in the Solar System - by observation we already know an incredible amount about the place. By the end of this century I would hope/(and probably 65-75%) expect - that we will have sent multiple probes to all the major bodies of the Solar System perhaps 2-3 times at a minimum(I'm thinking Pluto/Charon here - even if its not a planet - its still a major body) - many many more for Jupiter (15-20?), Saturn (15-20?), Uranus (5-10?), Neptune (5-10?).
Really hope that all these planets and their moons have been fully explored and that just about every secret that they have has been found out (short of actually conducting a manned mission to them).
Really hope this, and hope that (as I'm sure it will) something like Google Earth/Moon/Mars will eventually extend to cover the entire Solar System in great detail - and just thinking about that - its likely that within 20-30 years there will be Google Galactic/Milky Way and Google Universe - now those could be interesting products to play around with with some increased computing power.
I'm sure they're in the pipeline somewhere, hope to see them soon.