A better life awaits you in the off-world colonies.

That’s the conclusion of 12 experts polled for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first launch from Cape Canaveral.

The possibility of water on Mars and the moon has fueled speculation about if and when humans will colonize space. With the growing commercialization of space, and the possibility of people spending longer periods of time off Earth, questions arise as to why we should seek to inhabit space.

The potential commercial markets for this new frontier are endless. Low Earth Orbit research will bring discoveries in medicine, composites, materials, nanotechnology and many other areas. Once discoveries are made on-orbit manufacturing facilities will be developed inside specific space stations. The products built in space will fundamentally change the way we live on this planet.

Space-Based Solar Power Satellites will provide clean electrical power to many places on Earth including; remote villages with little or no power, major heavy industrial areas and population centers requiring more base load power. These and all of the other space related activities described will take humanity to it next level of development, becoming a space faring society and developing our final frontier.

One way in which to help clean up our environment and help create peace at the same time, is to use energy produced from solar-power satellites (SPS) to stabilize Earth. Maryniak believes, “if you make people rich with SPSs, not using fossil fuels, you have a way out of the pollution problem.” Maryniak pointed out a study that illustrates how energy problems cause poverty, and that women in parts of sub-Saharan Africa spend 80 percent of their time collecting wood and other materials for energy. The goal with SPSs is not only to make the air cleaner, but also to create a wealthier, better-educated populous.

Peter Kokh, on the other hand, said that nowhere in our solar system, other than on Earth, are there preexisting biospheres that can cradle and nurture human life. We will have to create and maintain mini-biospheres of our own wherever we go — and in order to do that we still have a lot to learn, said Kokh.

Kokh added that within these biospheres, we will be living ”immediately downwind and downstream of ourselves. If humans pollute these artificial environments the consequences will be detrimental to life almost immediately.” Kokh thinks that there will be no choice but to learn how to live in sustainable environments in space. Many of the experts agreed this might be the biggest return of investment to Mother Earth if humans can then also live in sustainable environments on Earth.

As James George, of the Space Frontier Foundation put it, “we can make our world green and beautiful with the resources of space. We can have abundant energy and material resources.”

“Protons [of hydrogen], helium — including helium 3, invaluable as fusion fuel — carbon, nitrogen and many other atoms have been absorbed [in]to the fine particles of the soil in this process, creating a valuable resource, as well as a record of solar history.”

In addition to studying space-weather patterns in the lunar dust, Kokh said we can study the rocks on the moon to find clues to the creation of the solar system, and life that may exist in it. The record of asteroid bombardment that can be read in the moon’s many craters also tells us much about the conditions of the early solar system.

Godwin thinks water is the most precious substance you can find in space. As Gregg Maryniak put it, “everywhere we look there is water.” They’ve been finding it on the moon and Mars, and many of the asteroids have it too. Maryniak said that as it stands, we know how to utilize the water if we choose to.

Other than water, Godwin said there is a platinum asteroid that is worth about $5 trillion or $6 trillion, as well as an asteroid that has more steel in it than all the iron on Earth. “Were currently finding as many asteroids in a week as we did in a year,” according to Maryniak.

Peter Kokh said that learning how to produce metals and other elements from what mining specialists call poor ores will help us develop technology to allow countries poor in mineral resources to economically tap what they have, and thus reduce the gap between have and have-not nations. Elements that are concentrated in ore veins are easier to tap. In many parts of the Third World elements exist, but not in ore veins. Kokh said chemical engineers will be needed to spearhead this work. Eventually, he believes, mining asteroids will allow humans access to infinite raw materials, like poor ores that are culled from the reluctant Earth.

“The far side versus the near side makes logistical support and infrastructure more difficult, but as the one place in the solar system that never has the Earth in its sky,” commented Dr. Tarter. She believes the benefits outweigh the challenges.

Peter Kokh agreed wholeheartedly with Tarter that the 2,000-mile (3,220-kilometer) thick bulk of the moon stops all radio-spectrum noise generated from Earth. (i.e. radio, TV, microwaves, radar, etc.). The only signals there will be are natural static from the stars and artificial signals, if any, from other civilizations.

Kokh also said the lava tubes on the moon are the ideal place to leave a time capsule. They are safe from all of Earths natural disasters. The lunar lava tubes are 3 billion years old and on a stable body. These tubes are the best place in our solar system to conceal the remnants of our civilization — i.e. signs of existence to be found by other beings visiting the moon, Kokh said. So, not only could we find signs of extraterrestrials in these lava tubes, he also suggests we leave our art, literature and history there for other forms of life to discover.

We will also be better able to detect Near Earth Objects (NEO) that could endanger life on Earth if not discovered on time. Richard Godwin, executive officer of THE WATCH, an organization that funds research of NEO’s internationally, said the moon would make a perfect observatory for us in space. It’s blacked out from Earth, especially on the far side. According to Godwin, there is a good possibility an asteroid will eventually hit us hard enough to seriously damage the ecology and the economy — but Godwin doesn’t think our planet will be destroyed any time soon. He argues that it only will cost a few million dollars for his research teams to get the lead-time to find the dangerously close NEOs like asteroids and meteorites. “If we know something is going to hit in 2040 we can move it in time,” he said.

Gregg Maryniak imagines that space is like a tabletop with holes in its surface. At the bottom of every sloped hole is a planet. In order to enter space from each planet you have to climb out of the gravity hole. Since the moon is just a dimple of a hole, it’s the easiest to climb out of. Building living facilities and factories on the moon will be the next leap in mankind’s growth into space. Since the moons gravity well is weaker; it’s a prime location where we could eventually build a spaceport to launch people to Mars and beyond using energy from solar-power satellites (SPS’s).

According to Peter Kokh, not only is it easier to get to the moon, it will be cheaper to work from there. Cheaper raw materials could be provided to build installations for additional construction of SPS’s, tourist hotels and zero-gravity factories in Earth orbit that would serve the planet.

Maryniak, however, thinks solar-power satellites (SPS’s) are our best bet for a brighter future. First development and materials will be launched from Earth, assembled in Low Earth Orbit and boosted into Geosynchronous Orbit over service areas by ion propulsion engines.

They can be eventually be built entirely from lunar material, do not need fusion and are not electric. He stated that “they generate the least amount of greenhouse gases” and are much better than nuclear power because they are the most benign source of energy. In 1980, it was already evident that SPS’s could produce enormous amounts of energy to fuel whole cities.

He believes there are important psychological reasons for human space colonies.

Maryniak agrees with the Frederick Turner thesis — America is shaped by the frontier experience. According to Maryniak, any students who are raised in lands that have been settled, such as American, Canadian and Australian students, are shaped by the idea of building a new frontier. “Their heritage of expanded frontiers gives them a psychological need to continue to expand,” he said. In addition to our heritage’s driving force to build new frontiers, Maryniak also believes humans can overcome limitations on Earth and gain religious and economic freedoms when they move to space.

Peter Kokh, president of Moon Miners’ Manifesto, offered another view. “Every time humans have moved into a new habitat, they have had to do without some of the resources and tools and food sources and materials to which they were accustomed in their homeland and learn how to make do with a different set of resources, tools, plants and animals — and often in a new climate.” As a result, humans have learned a new way to be, and to give creative expression to human talents and aptitudes.