Will man ever go to the stars?

I have serious doubts that man will ever have a routine presence in space. I do not believe that space travel will ever be economical. The settlement of the New World by Europeans can not be used as an analogy for settlement of other worlds. The explorers and frontiersman had to bring relatively little with them. The lands they colonized had air, water, food and raw materials to construct almost anything they needed. Certainly none of the planets in our solar system are this friendly to human life. Any settlement of them will require astronauts to carry a friendly environment with them. This will be very expensive. It is very likely that there are earth-like around other stars, but interstellar travel is also very expensive. Who would pay for the enormous money required? What return would they get on their investment?

If we send anything to the stars, I believe that it will be robots. Robots can be made that can operate in many different environments including space. The robots will have to be much more intelligent than present day robots. In fact, the robots will need human-level intelligence (or higher). Eventually, I think that we will develop the technology to do this (maybe after a Singularity). It is possible that these robots might be Von Neumann machines that will colonize the galaxy in our stead.

The Singularity

The Singularity is an interesting idea. In a nutshell, it states that technologically change is increasing at an exponential rate and that there will reach a point when people at the forefront of change will be incomprehensible to people not keeping up. Certainly, no one can deny that technology has been changing at a rapid rate and that the rate itself is increasing. There are lots of people who are currently being left behind by those of us who use the Internet and other digital media. However, whether this will actually result in a singularity is still in doubt. One of the most passionate proponents of this idea is a Vernor Vinge. His essay describes possible paths to a singularity. He has lead a new wave of science fiction dealing with this issue (see Charlie Stross and Ken MacLeod for other authors investigating the singularity).

I still have to admit that this may all be wishful thinking. In particular, science fiction dealing with singularities often portray the result of a singularity as god-like beings that are inscrutable to baseline humans. Calling the singularity a "rapture for nerds" is, I have to admit, a fair criticism.