When you consider that the solar system is the only part of the universe that humans will explore for many generations, if ever, I'm not really sure why its exploration really isn't a higher priority. Everything else is too far away.
It's a higher priority in the same vein as exploration was a priority before Europe discovered and exploited all of its natural resources. Some of that stuff wasn't where they were.
E.G. Coffee wasn't a European thing in the old world before trade throughout the Middle-East, the Americas and Asia.
Likewise we have no idea what new discoveries we can observe from afar (I mean relative to our own dinky little mud-ball floating in space) than in our back yard of the solar system. So you shotgun the science in hopes of hitting something everywhere.
I tend to disagree about the many generations (mostly because I really hope for a breakthrough in my lifetime) but if you describe to someone in the 1930s what the computer will be just 80 years later ... we are living in science fiction right now. And accelerating.
As soon as we can make some new advancements in energy generation and storage, I think that we'll see this happen. Think about it, we're already practically bursting at the seams here on earth; I can totally see the human race expanding to other parts as soon as it's sustainable (food, acquisition of new materials for fabrication, etc.)
Who knows if it'll happen in my lifetime, but I'm pretty pumped about it :)
we're already practically bursting at the seams here on earth
Not especially - developed countries have had declining birth rates for a while now, with several below the replacement rate.
Plus you have to consider that both Antarctica and the Sahara Desert are more habitable than any known extraterrestrial location, yet hardly anyone is living in either.
> Plus you have to consider that both Antarctica and the Sahara Desert are more habitable than any known extraterrestrial location, yet hardly anyone is living in either.
WHat's the incentive to live there where there are better places to live, still available ?
That's the point. We aren't nearly at the point where we can no longer sustain growth here on earth. I think in the event that that did happen, we'd soon explore living in Antarctica than on Mars.
