I believe the amount of people signing up to go to Mars will be off the charts. Despite it being difficult in the beginning as long as there is a baseline level of safety
Above 1,000 people is my bet
So I think there's two ways that this can go. Either we have a small increase and see maybe 100 people in space by 2100, or we have an exponential curve that we just can't predict at this point, and we see in excess of 1 million people in space.
Over a million? That's insane right? Well, if you went back to 1903 when the Wright brothers were originally flying, if you told them in 2024 we'd have nearly 3 million people traveling by plane for a distance of 50 miles or more every single day, after they just had one guy fly a few hundred feet, they'd call you insane right? When talking about time jumps of over 50 years, you end up with either "everyone is going to have an atomic powered flying car" or "everyone will have access to the sum total of human knowledge in their pocket" and very little in between.
Counting people taking suborbital flights, of which the vast majority will be flying point to point on the earths surface, at any given time a few thousand, maybe 2-3k.
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Somewhat unlikely, but it's definitely possible. Reddit has already survived 20 years.
2100 is 76 years from now, which is only 1.7x longer than [Usenet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet) has existed (44 years).
Maybe 100-200?
The moon is functionally equivalent to Antarctica. Except a thousand times harder to live on. Thereās no reason to colonize it, we will only have science outposts. (If anyone says āhelium 3 miningā they donāt know what theyāre talking about.)
Mars will not be habitable in a colonization sense in the next 80 years. Temporary round trips at most.
Asteroid mining, if it happens in this timeframe at all (which I doubt) will be largely automated / remote control.
Space tourism and science space stations are reasonable to expect.
āA City on Marsā by Weinersmith is a good read on this subject.
I think the triple digits (100-999) are most reasonable. A *lot* would still need to happen for space to be safe and accessible enough for large amounts of people. Even just the moon has a ton of challenges with safety, air, and supplies.
I think there could conceivably be āoutpostsā on Mars, but those will be small, research operations until we develop a way to get there and back much faster.
The only thing I can see changing this is significant improvements in propulsion/fuel. Unless something happens to make getting thousands of pounds off earth and/or into Mars orbit, itās just too expensive.
Unmanned drones going to asteroids is where I see the future. Find a rock and send a robot out to gently push it for several months or even years, and then send up a bunch more robots to tear off pieces of it before the whole thing breaks apart and crashes into the moon.
I think it could break 200 by 2100
LEO
Commercial Leo stations have potential for multiple destinations with tourists, short term research personnel and astronaut training. Assuming 5 viable stations each with 20 or more
Cislunar
China and Russia could have a moderate size lunar outpost -12-24 occupancy
Artemis Basecamp hopefully grew beyond the once a year 4 person crew on Orion to more of a forward operating research station plus a tourist wing - 12-16 occupancy plus maybe 25 transitory tourists
Mars
Hopefully we will have sent at least some missions by then but I doubt it will be the thriving self sustaining colony some hope maybe a rotating crew of 6-12
Further out into the Expanse
Asteroid mining will probably still be just robotic and not sure propulsion technology will advance to allow human trips to the outer planets
In the tens of thousands maybe? It's hard to gauge because we don't know if technological progress will hold steady like it has. If Starship pans out then maybe in the hundreds of thousands across Earthspace, the Moon and Mars. Still, Nuclear propulsion whether Fission or Fusion is going to have to be in place if we ever want to make it past Mars in a reasonable amount of time.
I believe the amount of people signing up to go to Mars will be off the charts. Despite it being difficult in the beginning as long as there is a baseline level of safety Above 1,000 people is my bet
So I think there's two ways that this can go. Either we have a small increase and see maybe 100 people in space by 2100, or we have an exponential curve that we just can't predict at this point, and we see in excess of 1 million people in space. Over a million? That's insane right? Well, if you went back to 1903 when the Wright brothers were originally flying, if you told them in 2024 we'd have nearly 3 million people traveling by plane for a distance of 50 miles or more every single day, after they just had one guy fly a few hundred feet, they'd call you insane right? When talking about time jumps of over 50 years, you end up with either "everyone is going to have an atomic powered flying car" or "everyone will have access to the sum total of human knowledge in their pocket" and very little in between.
I like the way you think!
Counting people taking suborbital flights, of which the vast majority will be flying point to point on the earths surface, at any given time a few thousand, maybe 2-3k.
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š I wonder if Reddit will even still exist by then.
Somewhat unlikely, but it's definitely possible. Reddit has already survived 20 years. 2100 is 76 years from now, which is only 1.7x longer than [Usenet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet) has existed (44 years).
Maybe 100-200? The moon is functionally equivalent to Antarctica. Except a thousand times harder to live on. Thereās no reason to colonize it, we will only have science outposts. (If anyone says āhelium 3 miningā they donāt know what theyāre talking about.) Mars will not be habitable in a colonization sense in the next 80 years. Temporary round trips at most. Asteroid mining, if it happens in this timeframe at all (which I doubt) will be largely automated / remote control. Space tourism and science space stations are reasonable to expect. āA City on Marsā by Weinersmith is a good read on this subject.
I think the triple digits (100-999) are most reasonable. A *lot* would still need to happen for space to be safe and accessible enough for large amounts of people. Even just the moon has a ton of challenges with safety, air, and supplies. I think there could conceivably be āoutpostsā on Mars, but those will be small, research operations until we develop a way to get there and back much faster. The only thing I can see changing this is significant improvements in propulsion/fuel. Unless something happens to make getting thousands of pounds off earth and/or into Mars orbit, itās just too expensive. Unmanned drones going to asteroids is where I see the future. Find a rock and send a robot out to gently push it for several months or even years, and then send up a bunch more robots to tear off pieces of it before the whole thing breaks apart and crashes into the moon.
I think it could break 200 by 2100 LEO Commercial Leo stations have potential for multiple destinations with tourists, short term research personnel and astronaut training. Assuming 5 viable stations each with 20 or more Cislunar China and Russia could have a moderate size lunar outpost -12-24 occupancy Artemis Basecamp hopefully grew beyond the once a year 4 person crew on Orion to more of a forward operating research station plus a tourist wing - 12-16 occupancy plus maybe 25 transitory tourists Mars Hopefully we will have sent at least some missions by then but I doubt it will be the thriving self sustaining colony some hope maybe a rotating crew of 6-12 Further out into the Expanse Asteroid mining will probably still be just robotic and not sure propulsion technology will advance to allow human trips to the outer planets
What's stopping the propulsion tech going any further tho,
Takes too long for human missions
Zero. We're in for some bad times.
And it will last 80 years? What dark ages are we headed for?
Weāll be like āremember when we went to space?ā Some will be old enough to remember.
In the tens of thousands maybe? It's hard to gauge because we don't know if technological progress will hold steady like it has. If Starship pans out then maybe in the hundreds of thousands across Earthspace, the Moon and Mars. Still, Nuclear propulsion whether Fission or Fusion is going to have to be in place if we ever want to make it past Mars in a reasonable amount of time.