In October 1957 the USSR sent Sputnik, the first satellite, in space to orbit the Earth. In 1961 the first human journeyed to space, followed in 1969 by the first man on the moon.

We’ve sent rovers to Venus and Mars and have seen galaxies and planets millions of light-years away. We’re beginning to understand how stars are born and die and we’re touching the tip of understanding the complexities of time.

We’ve come a long way from killing our food with sticks and being amazed by fire. We’re now on our way to sending real humans to Mars.

Being able to explore our solar system better raises an important question. How soon do you think we could live on another planet?

I watched “The Martian” this past weekend and honestly feel that despite our major advances, we can’t colonize other planets.

Think about it. In “Star Trek,” humans go into space but live mainly on Earth. “The Martian” is about a totally failed attempt to try to live on Mars. “Interstellar” shows us that there may be promising planets that seem to have all the requirements of life but they are too unpredictable to live on.

“Elysium” and “Star Wars” were the only two movies that showed humans are capable of inhabiting other planets. There are two problems with those movies.

First, in “Elysium” the planet is completely man-made which allows humans to inhabit it. That’s what it was designed for.

Second, the humans in “Star Wars” technically aren’t Earth humans so we can’t know if they are capable of inhabiting other planets.

Don’t be too down though. We may not be capable of actually living on another planet but I think that one day we definitely will be able to build one. Maybe we will even live in a futuristic “Star Trek” type society, where the Universe is our oyster.

Earth is our home we’re just going to have to accept that.

However, as far as our knowledge goes it can be so much greater. We can learn more about our own oceans and about how life works on this planet.

There’s no getting away from this cool, blue rock of ours so let’s treat it better. We don’t have many alternatives.