In the last century, humanity has gone from creating the airplane, to placing humans on other celestial bodies. From the telegraph, to quantum computing and the Internet; even controlling the power of the Atom itself. The technological advancement rate is increasing exponentially, and our capabilities are far exceeding the estimations of those in the 20th century that had so greatly contributed to these advancements. A historic shift towards expanding human civilization has been laid out in the groundwork of a recent United Nations announcement from the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs. They are officially starting their own Space mission to allow developing nations to have access to orbital space. They plan to use Dream Chaser spacecrafts, developed by American aerospace firm Sierra Nevada Corporation.
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-united-nations-just-announced-its-first-ever-space-mission
The US congress just signed off on the proposed budget for NASA of $19.3 billion; including their manned mission to Mars.
http://spacenews.com/senate-bill-gives-nasa-19-3-billion-for-2017/
NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency, Chinese Space Agency, and Indian Space Agency all have plans to build extraterrestrial infrastructure. Some programs are working towards orbital space stations around the moon, while others are focusing on permanent lunar settlement. There are scientist and engineers who are working on sub orbital infrastructures, like Space elevators. A group of Japanese scientists from Shizuoka University have designed a test model for one known as "Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite-Cube", and have plans to test it in the near future. There are also plans by a Japanese construction company called Obayashi to create a space elevator by mid century.
The biggest news in this area of cosmic expansion is with Elon Musk's recent proposal for initiating the creation of a full-fledged Martian city. His goal is to have a human settlement populated to one million within 40-100 years; forming a fully functioning city civilization.
The significance of this is precisely what Elon Musk states as his reasoning; which is to make humanity a multi planetary species for the purpose of survival. The cataclysms associated with climate change start unfolding as they have in recent years. The risks of civilization collapse and human extinction are a significant threat that needs immediate attention. A prime model of mobilizing production towards all of these ends can be seen with the Green New Deal of the proposed Green party platform. It's mobilization of the economy towards renewable energy production within a 15 year timeframe that can easily be shifted towards immobilized effort for suborbital and extraterrestrial infrastructure. http://gpus.org/organizing-tools/the-green-new-dea...
Space has been known as the "Final Frontier". As technology increases at an exponential rate, the possibilities arise more and more as to how we can apply these to expanding our species into the universe. The destiny of our species and our planet as a whole, as well as all potential planets and life that we may interact with in the future. We will be determined by how we collectively act during these trying times. Humanity has ascended as a species from one traveling by horse and carriage; to one of spacecrafts and jetliners. There is no limits to our capabilities, and no end to our reach. We can set forth into the universe as a species, wiser and more knowledgeable, knowing that the 21st century will be forever known to all of human civilization as the Cosmic Century.
