Futurists

Here's one for all you futurists out there. What years do you predict the following things will happen:

1. Humans walk on Mars.
2. Humans travel to another solar system.
3. Official contact with "little green men" (ie intelligent beings from a place other than Earth). Recognised by the numerous governments of lots of different countries.
4. Robots who clear the table, do the washing up, dry up, and then put everything away. And then bring you a coffee/cognac afterwards.
5. Cars that drive themselves completely (ie can use the roads that everyone else uses and you can just sleep in the back without any fear of safety)
6. Average Life Expectancy reaches over 300 years for humans

1. Humans walk on Mars. 2017, at some point it will take a boost and a battle for the first.

2. Humans travel to another solar system.
not in a hundred years, hard to predict after that, possible after the year 2222

3. Official contact with "little green men" (ie intelligent beings from a place other than Earth). Recognised by the numerous governments of lots of different countries.
Same as the solar system, so i go with at least after the year 2222, but possible never.

4. Robots who clear the table, do the washing up, dry up, and then put everything away. And then bring you a coffee/cognac afterwards.
Dont they already exist, but available for the public in about 25 years from now

5. Cars that drive themselves completely (ie can use the roads that everyone else uses and you can just sleep in the back without any fear of safety)
Any time soon, so i could think of in about 10 or 15 years. Maybe around 2025

6. Average Life Expectancy reaches over 300 years for humans
Never

1. Humans walk on Mars: Probably 2100, as there isn't a lot of push to do so at the present.
2. Humans travel to another solar system: 2200
3. Official contact with "little green men" (ie intelligent beings from a place other than Earth). Recognised by the numerous governments of lots of different countries. : Could be tomorrow, but it won't happen until we can be sure the religious nuts won't blow up the planet if its announced. Say another 100 years, so 2111.
4. Robots who clear the table, do the washing up, dry up, and then put everything away. And then bring you a coffee/cognac afterwards: 2061
5. Cars that drive themselves completely (ie can use the roads that everyone else uses and you can just sleep in the back without any fear of safety): I think the tech is already, but the cost is prohibitive, and to be honest, I dont think people will want to give up their control, until its forced upon them. It'll probabbly start on the freeways first and then it'll be mandated on smaller thoroughfares. Say another 75 years: 2086.
6. Average Life Expectancy reaches over 300 years for humans

Interesting question: Everybody says "never", and then points to the "natural" ageing of cells and death as inevitable. But geneticists and biologists have discovered that the actual "natural" decline and death of cells is not "natural" at all, but genetically controlled. Cells replicate throughout the lifespan, but at some point, for some unknown reason, they simply stop reproducing as fast, and eventually stop healing themselves. So...theoretically, if we could determine what causes cells to "switch off" and stop reproducing and repairing themselves, then again, theoretically, one could go on living forever......Can you imagine how much people could extort from each other for this kind of technology. In the end...I dont think folks would want to live for more than a couple of hundred years tho, and there would be a lot of suicide.

(Maybe more like 150 years..... 2070

2. Again corporate greed, 2080

3. Not until we grow up and get get along with each other,if that can happen, there is no logical reason why an intelligent race would even want to talk to humans for at least another 150 years or so.

4. 20 years

5. 50 years

6. the human body is only built to live for so long, however with cloning you will be able to go on for a long time, be just like changing pants.

WE will need to colonize in order to survive as a species, it's when not if something of great destruction happens to this planet.

2. I think #3 would have to happen first, similar to the amazing videogame "Mass Effect". For those unfamiliar, in the video game around 2140 we are exploring on Mars and we find the ruins of an ancient civilization. We use the technology we find and eventually find what is called a "mass relay" which allows travel to the farthest stars, out a little past our former "9th planet" of Pluto. We are met by alien species around this point, and then begin to travel the galaxy. With the NASA budget, this is about the only way I see this happening. We can't even decide if we SHOULD go to Mars at this point, much less further.

3. See #2.

4. You mean like Rosie in the Jetsons? I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere, already has one. It's been well proven in the past 150 years that the US government discovers and uses technology FAR before they release it to the public. For example, CD technology was in use for at least 20 years before it was released to the American public.

5. Again, probably already possible. Lojack could lock your vehicle down already, whats to say they haven't figured out the technology to pilot said vehicle already.

6. I don't think the average life expectancy ever reaches 300 years. Let's crack 80 first. Far too many viruses and diseases which can affect the elderly at this point. And far too many of them that kill you dead with no cure once you get to an advanced age. Plus, with the amount of "human bred death" such as car accidents, wars, murders, drownings, etc. - the average will remain low for a long time simply because we cannot get out of our own way.

Now, I answer these questions with the following stipulation. While I think the Mayan 2012 idea is probably a little off, I could DEFINITELY see this world ending within the next ten years. The technology already exists to destroy the entire planet (nukes) and there are other technologies or diseases that if re-released to the general population would cause massive death on their own, and further death by terror (smallpox, anthrax, beubonic plague, etc).

I don't mean to be a fatalist, and wish I could be more of a futurist, but the fact of the matter is when you have leaders such as Kim Jong Il and others still going crazy in this world, how long can we last before a massive "accident" happens and these technologies/diseases are in the wrong hands, or before one of these whack-jobs presses the proverbial "button".