It’s fun to think of space tourism, now that the first civilian visit to the space station has happened. I’d love to spend a few days in space someday. Knowing my vertigo issues on spinning rides, I’d probably spend most of the trip with motion sickness and it will be far less fun than I imagine… but I want to try! I want to experience weightlessness for a few days, and to be an astronaut.
But that’s just for a few days. There are some serious issues that astronauts face when going to space for long periods of time.
“Astronauts on space missions suffer from balance problems, visual disturbances, damage to the heart muscle and bone loss.” – The Dangers of Zero Gravity
These get more and more serious the longer you spend in space. Especially effects to our vision.
“…if we want to think about colonisation or extended stays on Mars, we’re going to have to consider blindness as a potential complication.
Right now, there are no solutions for how to treat or prevent fluid build-up in space, and with the brain damage that’s also expected to come from long-term spaceflight.” – Space Could Leave You Blind, And Scientists Say They’ve Finally Figured Out Why
Basically, a several year journey to Mars will be extremely detrimental to the health of anyone who makes the journey.
The next steps in getting there?
1. We need to find out if we need to replicate a full 1G environment or if long term travel at a less gravitational force will be required to rid ourselves of these health issues for long term space travel.
2. We need massive rotating space stations that are designed to provide us with some gravitational force.
3. We need to build these and experiment with them as we just start thinking about colonizing the moon.
4. We need a working moon colonization before even thinking about colonizing Mars.
This will take decades and decades.
I will be 100 if I can make it to 2067… it doesn’t matter how close they are to moon visits by then, and how advanced longevity Science is, I’ll be in no shape to make the moon journey, much less a several year trip to Mars.
It’s fun to think about space holidays like we see in the movies, and who knows, maybe in 100 years that will be possible. But without some significant scientific leaps in technology, space tourism in my lifetime will only go as far as the international space station or maybe a very short moon landing… I’ll just need to save up a few million dollars for the trip before I get too old. Because in my lifetime a trip beyond the space station (which might be affordable in my foreseeable future) will still only be the holiday destination of millionaires and billionaires. My feet will never touch the moon, much less Mars.
That said, if I had the chance to go to the Moon, I’d go!
Mars on the other hand? Not a chance of this happening. This will likely be an adventure opportunity for my grandkids or maybe great-grandkids. By then there might be a technology that allows faster space travel. Maybe they will take a picnic lunch on a trip to Saturn’s rings. It’s fun to imagine space travel that simply isn’t possible today.
The Jetsons, created in 1962 was supposed to depict our world a hundred years in the future. I don’t think we’ll be living and traveling like them in 2062. Technology does not advance as fast as our imaginations.
