The motivation for space exploration.

[pleed]

Not sure if this belongs here or not, so mods please move if you feel its on the wrong board. Anyways, what if the universe was different. That is to say, what if the creation of the solar system had a different outcome than what currently exists. Instead lets imagine there would be more than one known planet that was able to support life. lets say Mars, Venus or possibly even the Moon had a significant breathable atmosphere and a warm climate able to support human life, and with water and nutritious soil for plant growth. Or maybe there's even existing life on these worlds that is comparable to life on earth.

That said do you think that human space exploration would be different? How long would it have been (after the advent of the liquid fuel rocket and the escape of earths gravity) before man reached the Moon or Mars if they were different worlds? Assuming that human history would be the same what would the space initiative be like to the government or the public compared to what exist now?

 

[Booban]

There's not much to discuss there. I think it obvious that everyone would try to get there as fast as possible.

Historically I'm not sure that if Galileo looked up and saw moving things, they would have tried to build the worlds largest cannon to get there, a la Jules Verne. Galileo and Keplar assumed that there was life on the moon (and rivers) but it would still take a world war and von braun before people could put two and two together to use rockets to reach space which we did pretty soon thereafter, even if by that time no one seriously thought that there could be life there.